JAMES   G.   BIRNEY 
AND  HIS  TIMES 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY 

WITH  SOME  ACCOUNT  OF 
ABOLITION  MOVEMENTS  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE  1823 


BY 

WILLIAM  BIRNEY 

EX-BBEVET   MAJOR-GENERAL,   UNITED    STATES  VOLUNTEERS 


The  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States 
was  neither  an  accident  nor  a  miracle ;  it  was  a 
result  of  evolution. 


V 


NEW   YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
1890 


COPYRIGHT,  1889, 
BY  D.   APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


TO 

THE   STUDEXTS   OF   AMERICAN   HISTORY 

THIS   CONTRIBUTION    TO    ITS   MATERIAL 

IS  RESPECTFULLY   DEDICATED. 


PREFACE. 


SLAVERY  agitation  in  the  United  States  may  be  con 
sidered  in  two  great  periods.  The  first  begins  with  the 
judicial  abolition  of  slavery  in  Massachusetts  in  1783,  and 
the  anti-slavery  Ordinance  of  1787  for  the  government  of 
the  Territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  River,,  and  ends  with 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Xew  York  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1827.  In  its  course  the  number  of  free  States  increased 
from  one  to  twelve,  and  the  number  of  freedmen  nearly 
three  hundred  fold.  It  may  be  called  the  abolition  era. 
It  was  a  part  of  the  larger  movement  which  began  in 
1794  with  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  French  West 
Indies,  extinguished  it  in  numerous  European  colonies 
and  several  South  American  republics,  and  ended  with 
its  abolition  in  Mexico  in  1829,  and  in  the  British  West 
Indies  in  1833  by  act  of  Parliament. 

The  second  period  begins  with  the  accession  of  General 
Jackson  to  the  presidency  in  1829,  and  ends  with  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery  in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 

In  the  first  period  freedom  was  the  assailant  of  slavery, 
seeking  to  extinguish  it  by  moral  and  religious  influences. 
In  the  second,  the  slave-power  was  the  assailant,  seeking 
to  overthrow  the  freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press,  and  of 
the  mails,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  the  right  of  petition, 
and  every  other  bulwark  of  civil  liberty  tp  extend  slavery 
over  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  and  gain  undis 
puted  political  supremacy  in  the  nation. 


vi  PREFACE. 

It  was  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  who  first  called  abolitionists 
away  from  obsolete  issues  to  the  true  one.  In  the  summer 
of  1835  he  abandoned  his  Southern  home  and  removed  to 
Ohio,  declaring  that  the  slavery  of  the  blacks  had  ceased 
to  be  the  question  before  the  country,  and  that  the  liber 
ties  of  all  American  citizens  and  the  safety  of  the  republic 
were  in  danger.  During  the  following  ten  years  he  was 
recognized  by  the  opponents  of  the  slave-power  as  their 
leader.  In  1840,  and  again  in  1844,  he  was  made  their 
candidate  for  the  presidency  by  unanimous  national  con 
ventions.  No  other  name  seems  to  have  been  thought  of 
in  connection  with  the  nomination.  His  cordial  admirer, 
ex-Representative  George  W.  Julian,  of  Indiana,  writes  of 
him  and  his  co-workers  : 

Abolitionism,  as  a  working  force  in  our  politics,  had  to  have 
a  beginning,  and  no  man  who  cherishes  the  memory  of  the  old 
Free- Soil  party,  and  of  the  larger  one  to  which  it  gave  birth, 
will  withhold  the  meed  of  his  praise  from  the  heroic  little  band 
of  sappers  and  miners  who  blazed  the  way  for  the  armies  which 
were  to  follow,  and  whose  voices,  though  but  faintly  heard  in  the 
whirlwind  of  1840,  were  made  distinctly  audible  in  1844.  .  .  . 
Their  political  creed  was  substantially  that  of  the  Free-Soilers  of 
1848  and  the  Republicans  of  1856  and  I860.  They  were  any 
thing  but  political  fanatics,  and  history  will  record  that  their 
sole  offense  was  the  espousal  of  the  truth  in  advance  of  the  mul 
titude,  which  slowly  and  finally  followed  in  their  footsteps. 

James  G.  Birney  was  respected  even  by  the  enemies 
of  his  cause.  He  was  universally  regarded  as  without 
fear  and  without  stain.  The  only  charge  ever  made 
against  him  by  any  reputable  person  was  of  faithlessness 
to  Henry  Clay,  in  the  campaign  of  1844 ;  and  that  was 
made  by  Horace  Greeley  in  the  white  heat  of  his  disap 
pointment  at  the  failure  of  the  Whig  campaign.  Mr. 
Greeley  afterward  retracted  it.  Mr.  Julian  says  of  those 
who  voted  for  Mr.  Birnev  : 


PREFACE.  vii 

Now,  in  the  clear  perspective  of  history,  they  -stand  vindi 
cated  against  their  Whig  assailants,  whose  fevered  brains  and 
party  intolerance  blinded  their  eyes  to  the  truth  ("Political 
Recollections,"  1884,_p.  43)^ 

Hon.  Carl  Schurz  is  eminently  fair  in  his  treatment 
of  this  subject.     He  says,  in  his  admirable  biography  of  , 
Jlenry  ClajjV 

The  Liberty  party  consisted  of  earnest  anti-slavery  men  who 
pursued  their  objects  by  political  action.    They  were  not  in  sym 
pathy  with  those   abolitionists  who  lost  themselves  in   "  no- 
government  "  theories,  who  denounced  the  Union  and  the  Con 
stitution  as  a  "covenant  with  death  and  agreement  with  hell," 
and  who  abhorred  the  exercise  of  the  suffrage  under  the  ConstiX   ] 
tution  as  a  participation  in  sin.    In  the  language  of  Birney,  they  Y 
"regarded  the  national  Constitution  with  unabated  affection"/ 
/voL  i 


And  again  : 

Birney,  its  candidate  for  the  presidency,  was  a  native  of  Ken 
tucky.  A  slaveholder  by  inheritance,  he  liberated  his  slaves 
and  provided  generously  for  them.  He  was  a  lawyer  of  ability, 
a  gentleman  of  culture,  and  a  vigorous  and  graceful  speaker. 
Obeying  a  high  sense  of  duty,  he  sacrificed  the  comforts  of 
wealth,  home,  and  position  to  the  cause  of  universal  freedom  — 
not  as  a  wild  enthusiast  or  unreasoning  fanatic,  but  as  a  calm 
thinker,  ..temperate  in  language,  and  firm  in  maintaining  his  con 
clusions.  His  principal  conclusion  was  that  slavery  and  free  in 
stitutions  could  not  exist  together.  He  has  been  charged  with  com 
mitting  an  act  of  personal  faithlessness  in  opposing  Clay  in  1844. 
This  charge  was  utterly  unjust.  He  had  never  given  Clay  or 
Clay's  friends  any  promise  of  support.  It  is  true,  Clay  and  Bir 
ney  had  maintained  a  friendly  intercourse  until  1834  ;  but  in 
June  of  that  year  they  had  a  conference  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
which  produced  upon  Birney  a  discouraging  effect.  From  that 
time  their  friendly  .intercourse  ceased,  and  Clay  found  in  Bir 
ney  only  a  severe  critic  (Scburz'a  "  Henry  Clay,"  vol.  ii, 
254). 


viii  PREFACE. 

And  again : 

The  object  of  Henry  Clay's  highest  ambition  escaped  him 
because,  at  the  decisive  moment,  he  was  untrue  to  himself  (ib., 
page  265). 

For  forty  years  after  the  sudden  close  of  his  political 
career  the  fame  of  James  G.  Birney  escaped  detraction. 
Numerous  biographical  sketches  of  him  were  published 
in  magazines,  cyclopaedias,  and  newspapers;  and  to  the 
tone  of  none  of  them  could  the  most  sensitive  of  his 
friends  take  exception.  The  unfriendly  feeling  of  Mr. 
Garrison  toward  him  was  no  secret  in  the  anti-slavery 
world;  but  the  most  devoted  of  Mr.  Garrison's  friends 
did  not  appear  to  share  it.  Xo  praise  of  Mr.  Birney  was 
more  cordial  or  appreciative  than  that  bestowed  on  him 
by  Samuel  J.  May,  Oliver  Johnson,  and  Parker  Pillsbury. 
The  first  devotes  to  eulogistic  narrative  of  him  more  than 
eight  pages  of  his  "  Recollections  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Con 
flict"  (pages  203-211)  ;•  the  second  indorses  Mr.  May's 
most  eulogistic  language,  and  adds  that  he  was  "  a  calm, 
dignified,  and  cultured  gentleman  and  Christian " ;  and 
the  third,  in  his  curious  volume,  "  Acts  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Apostles,"  mentions  him  many  times  and  always 
in  the  most  kindly  temper.  With  such  a  consensus  of 
favorable  appreciation,  there  seemed  to  be  no  special  need 
of  a  biography  of  James  G.  Birney.  It  transpired,  IIOAV- 
ever,  about  1883,  that  the  sons  of  Mr.  Garrison  Avere  pre 
paring  an  ample  memoir  of  their  father — a  work  which, 
from  a  filial  standpoint,  involved  the  reproduction  and 
expression  of  Mr.  Garrison's  theories  and  prejudices.  The 
first  two  volumes  of  the  memoir  appeared  in  1885.  They 
were  noticed  as  folloAvs  by  Hon.  A.  G.  Kiddle,  of  Ohio, 
ex-Representative  in  Congress,  in  his  book  "  The  Life  of 
Benjamin  F.  AVade,"  ex-United  States  Senator,  published 
at  Cleveland  in  1880  : 


PREFACE.  ix 

To  claim  the  arousing  and  marshaling  of  the  force  of  the 
mind  and  conscience  of  the  men  of  the  North  against  slavery,  as 
pre-eminently  the  work  of  one  man,  is  a  totally  unwarranted  as 
sumption.  There  is  a  way  of  writing  history  lately  attempted 
which,  if  accepted  without  protest,  would  for  the  time  seem  to 
accomplish  this  thing.  The  writers  of  the  biography  of  the  late 
W.  L.  Garrison  rely  quite  extensively  upon  his  "Liberator"  for 
authority,  and,  thus  sustained,  there  really  was  but  one  champion 
of  God  and  freedom  in  the  North.  Should  the  sons  of  the  late 
J.  G.  Birney  accept  the  challenge,  work  as  largely  and  as  nar 
rowly,  drawing  their  authority  from  a  similar  source,  they  would 
for  him  make  a  case  every  whit  as  strong.  Neither  work  would 
be  accepted  finally  as  history  ;  both  wrould  be  great  contributions 
to  it,  of  value  beyond  estimation.  This  last  work  should  be 
at  once  set  about.  It  would  have  this  unequaled  advantage — 
slavery  was  overthrown  ~by  political  means.  Mr.  Garrison  refused 
their  use,  opposed  with  the  might  of  his  trenchant  pen  and  re 
sounding  voice  their  employment  and  the  men  who  used  them. 

Mr.  Birney  was  among  the  first  to  see  that  the  most  effective 
single  thing  was  the  employment  of  political  power,  backed  of 
course  by  all  the  moral  forces.  He  was  the  first  to  employ  it. 
He,  too,  was  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  in  1840. 

He  was  hewn  from  the  mountains,  rejected  of  politicians,  to 
become —  But  I  am  not  to  anticipate.  He  was  placed  in  the  field 
largely  by  the  clear -seeing  Myron  Holley,  .  .  .  and  received 
but  7,059  votes,  provoking  gibes  and  sneers  from  the  Whigs,  de 
rision  and  sarcasm  from  Garrison.  They  wrere  allies  against  Bir 
ney  ("Life  oTWade/^ageJjS). 

The  "  Life  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison  "  by  his  sons  is 
in  four  large  octavo  volumes,  the  last  two  -having  been 
published  in  October  last.  They  are  the  product  of  the 
labor  of  years,  and,  in  the  numerous  notes  and  painfully 
minute  references  to  authorities,  most  of  them  to  the 
"Liberator,"  indicate  that  they  were  intended  for  students 
of  history  in  public  libraries  rather  than  for  the  general 
reader.  They  may  be  regarded  as  in  the  nature  of  a  legal 
brief,  filed  for  posterity,  in  behalf  of  William  Lloyd  Gar- 


X  PREFACE. 

rison,  against  the  American  people,  the  South,  the  West, 
the  Union,  the  Church,  the  clergy,  the  press,  Benjamin 
Lundy,  James  G-.  Birney,  and  all  other  political  abolition 
ists. 

As  the  sons  of  Mr.  Garrison  have  unequaled  facilities 
for  "  sifting  "  their  theories  and  filial  claims  into  the  pub 
lic  mind,  being  literary  men  by  profession  and  connected 
as  editors,  contributors,  readers,  and  managers,  with  pub 
lishing  houses,  magazines,  and  metropolitan  newspapers, 
surviving  political  abolitionists  can  not  afford  to  let  their 
brief  go  without  answer  or  protest.  In  the  present  vol 
ume,  written  in  moments  taken  from  the  cares  of  an  ex 
acting  profession,  the  writer  has  sought  to  correct  their 
mistakes  and  errors,  and  to  substitute  a  true  for  a  false 
theory  of  the  anti-slavery  and  slavery  movements.  Upon 
the  issues  made  he  invokes  the  impartial  judgment  of  the 
men  who  write  American  history.  If  he  shall  not  have 
the  good  fortune  to  win  their  attention  and  verdict,  he 
trusts  that  the  general  reader  will  rise  from  the  perusal  of 
this  book  with  clearer  views  of  the  strong  currents  of 
political  opinion  that  preceded  the  Great  Rebellion,  and 
with  increased  respect  and  admiration  for  the  men  who 
dared  for  the  liberties  of  this  people  to  begin  the  battle 
with  the  Slave -Power,  but  who  died  before  the  victory 
was  won. 

Speak,  History,  who  are  Life's  victors  ?     Unroll  thy  long  annals 

and  say — 
Are  they  those  whom  the  world  called  the  victors— who  won  the 

success  of  a  day  ? 
The  martyrs  or  Nero  ?     The  Spartans  who  fell  at  Thermopylae's 

tryst, 
Or  the  Persians  and  Xerxes  ?     His  judges  or  Socrates  ?     Pilate  or 

Christ  ? 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  December  15,  1SSO. 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — THE  ANCESTORS       .  -     .  • 1 

II.— THE  FATHER    .     .    .        .        .     ' 8 

III.-:— INFANCY  AND  YOUTH,  1792-1808 9 

IV. — ANTI-SLAVERY  INFLUENCES  IN  YOUTH.      . 

V.— LIFE  AT  PRINCETON,  1808-1810       .   '     .        .        .         .25 

VI. — BETWEEN  COLLEGE  AND  THE  BAR,  1810-1814  .         .        .29 

VII.— His  LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY,  1814-1818         .        .         .        .81 

VIII. — LAWYER — PLANTER — POLITICIAN,  IN  ALABAMA,  1S18-1823     36 

IX. — LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE,  ALABAMA,  1823-1826     .         .        .44 

X.— LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE,   1826-1827  ,         .         .         .     55 

XI. — THE  POLITICAL  CAMPAIGN  OF  1828 63 

XII. — ABOLITION  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE  1828    .        .        . 
XIII. — LONG  VISIT  TO  THE  FREE  STATES,  1830  .        .        .         .87 
XIV. — ABANDONS  PARTY  POLITICS — INTENDED  REMOVAL  TO  ILLI 
NOIS—VISIT  OF  T.  D.  WELD,  1830-1832        ...     96 
XV. — EXPERIENCE  AS  AN  AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY, 

1832-1833 Ill 

XVI. — FROM  COLONIZATION,  THROUGH  GRADUAL  EMANCIPATION,  TO 

IMMEDIATE  ABOLITION,  1833-1334        .        .        .         .   131 

XVIL— ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IN  KENTUCKY,  1834-1835         .         .  143 

XVIII. —A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION,  1835  .         .        .        .         .  160 

XIX. — HE  IS  OSTRACIZED  IN  KENTUCKY  AND  GOES  TO  OHIO,  1835  .    180 

XX. — THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY,  1835-1836         .  188 
XXL— THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,  1836  .        .        .        .  204 


CONTENTS. 


XXII.— THE  EDITOR,  1836,  1837 220 

XXII I.— THE    MOB    AT   CINCINNATI,   JULY,    183G  — PRO-SLAVERY 

MOBS 240 

XXIV.— LIFE  IN  CINCINNATI,   1SSG-1S37 256 

XXV. — THE  XO-GOVERNMENT  VAGARY 269 

XXVI. — THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  BOSTON  VAGARIES  .         .        .         .281 
XXVII.— THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISONIANS,  1837-1840       .         .  2C5  V 

XXVIII.—"  THE  SMALL  EXTREME  WING  " 314 

XXIX.— THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY  .  332  ]/ 

XXX.— TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER y5? 

XXXI. — TWELVE  YEARS  AN  INVALID— CONCLUSION       .         .         .373 

APPENDIX  A.— ANTI-SLAVERY  BOOKS  BEFORE  1831 

"  B.— SKETCH  OF  BENJAMIN  LUNDY'S  LIFE     . 

"  C. — NATIONAL  ANTI-SLAVERY  SOCIETIES        .         .  .  407 

D. — JAMES  G.  BIRNEY'S  LETTER  TO  W.  L.  STONE  .  .  423 

E. — IMMEDIATE  ABOLITIONISTS  IN  OHIO  BEFORE  1830  .  430 

"          F.— WRITINGS  OF  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY     .         .        .  .435 

INDEX   .  ....  437 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES, 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  ANCESTORS. 

THE  subject  of  this  sketch  was  of  pure  Protestant 
Scotch- Irish  descent.  His  ancestors  on  both  sides  be 
longed  to  that  distinct  type  of  mankind  created  by  two 
centuries  of  civil  wars  and  exclusive  intermarriages  out  of 
the  native  Irishmen  who  had  followed  Henry  VIII  into 
the  Church  of  England  and  the  Scotch  colonists  of  James 
I,  with  some  intermixture  of  Englishmen  and  Huguenot 
exiles.  It  was  confined  to  the  nine  counties  in  the  north 
eastern  part  of  Ireland  which  are  known  as  the  province 
of  Ulster ;  and,  by  its  intelligence,  thrift,  industry,  and  in 
ventive  talent,  has  made  that  province  one  of  the  great 
manufacturing  centers  of  the  world.  It  has  furnished  to 
the  United  States  many  of  the  strong  men  who  have 
helped  to  shape  republican  institutions.  Among  these 
may  be  named  Andrew  Jackson,  John  C.  Calhoun,  the 
Shelbys,  the  Logans,  the  McDowells,  A.  T.  Stewart,  and 
Horace  Greeley — all  distinguished  for  ability,  energy, 
moral  courage,  and  tenacity  of  purpose.  With  the  aid  of 
0 'Hart's  elaborate  work  on  Irish  pedigrees,  the  author 
might  trace  the  genealogy  of  James  Gillespie  Birney  to  a 
remote  period,  finding  some  historical  characters  among 
his  progenitors ;  but  the  facts,  even  if  established,  possess 
no  anthropological  value.  Although  it  is  true  that  each 
man  is  the  result  of  converging  hereditary  forces,  these 
2 


2  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

are  too  numerous  for  examination,  the  ancestors  within 
ten  generations  exceeding  two  thousand.  It  will  be 
enough  for  the  purposes  of  this  book  to  give  a  few  authen 
tic  data  respecting  the  grandparents  and  parents. 

The  paternal  grandfather  owned  the  old  family  home 
stead  near  Cootehill,  County  Cavan.  He  was  a  prosper 
ous  farmer  and  miller,  a  church  vestryman,  a  magistrate, 
and  influential  in  local  affairs.  His  wife  was  a  member  of 
the  Church  of  England,  and  a  woman  of  strongly  marked 
character.  There  were  several  children. 

The  maternal  grandfather  was  John  Read,  a  native  of 
Londonderry.  Inheriting  wealth  and  high  social  position, 
he  had  been  liberally  educated,  and  had  traveled  in  for 
eign  countries.  His  tall  and  graceful  person,  handsome 
features,  ruddy  complexion,  blond  hair,  culture,  and  court 
ly  manners  made  him  a  remarkable  individual.  For  his 
grandson  James  he  always  had  a  strong  affection,  and, 
for  several  years,  he  made  the  boy  his  companion  and 
pupil.  His  migration  to  the  United  States  was  a  conse 
quence  of  the  discovery  of  some  political  intrigue  of  his 
against  the  British  Government.  He  was  in  Kentucky  as 
early  as  1779.  In  that  year  he  built  a  fort,  about  two  miles 
from  Danville,  and  a  mansion  which  remains  to  this  day. 
He  married  Lettice  Wilcox.  Their  youngest  son,  Thomas 
B.  Read,  was,  in  1826,  United  States  Senator  from  Missis- 
sipi.  Their  daughters  were  carefully  educated  ;  they  were 
all  well  married,  and  among  their  descendants  are  found 
many  of  the  distinguished  men  of  Kentucky,  including 
Judge  John  Green,  Judge  Thomas  Green,  Rev.  Lewis  W. 
Green,  D.  D.,  Dr.  Willis  G.  Craig,  Dr.  Edwards,  of  St. 
Louis,  and  General  Humphrey  Marshall.  Mr.  Read  was 
remarkable  for  conversational  talent,  and  some  of  the  most 
able  men  of  Kentucky  were  often  his  guests.  It  was  in  his 
parlors  that  his  grandson  received  much  of  the  kind  of 
education  given  to  youth  by  the  conversation  of  the  wise. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  FATHER. 

JAMES  GILLESPIE  BIRNEY  was  an  only  son.  When 
he  was  three  years  old  his  mother  died,  leaving  him  and 
an  infant  sister  to  the  care  of  the  father.  The  surviving 
parent  did  all  a  strong  and  rugged  man  could  do  to  sup 
ply  the  place  of  maternal  tenderness.  The  bright  and 
sturdy  boy  awakened  a  strong  paternal  pride  ;  and  before 
he  had  learned  his  letters  the  father  had  marked  out  for 
him  a  course  of  training  and  studies  with  a  well-formed 
intention  to  make  of  him  a  lawyer  and  statesman ;  and  this 
course,  with  unimportant  modifications,  was  afterwards  per 
sistently  adhered  to.  This  singular  devotion  was  an  im 
portant  factor  in  the  formation  of  the  character  of  the 
son,  and  justifies  an  account  of  the  father  which  in  most 
biographies  would  be  too  minute. 

In  September,  1783,  an  adventurous  Irish  lad  of  six 
teen,  whose  imagination  was  aglow  with  the  glories  of  the 
young  American  republic,  left  secretly  his  father's  com 
fortable  home  in  the  County  Cavan,  and  embarked  at 
Dublin  for  Philadelphia.  He  had  little  baggage  and  less 
money,  but  he  was  broad-shouldered  and  active,  with  a 
manly  bearing  and  pleasing  address.  On  the  day  of  his 
arrival  in  Philadelphia,  with  no  recommendation  except 
intelligence  and  a  clerkly  handwriting,  he  obtained  em 
ployment  in  a  wholesale  and  retail  dry-goods'  house.  There 
he  remained  until  he  was  twenty-one  years  of  age,  working 
his  way  up  until  he  was  the  leading  employe  of  the  firm. 


4  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Choosing  the  frontier  settlement  of  Kentucky  as  his  future 
home,  he  obtained  a  stock  of  goods  in  Philadelphia  on 
credit,  and,  in  the  autumn  of  1788,  opened  a  store  at 
Danville,  which  was  then  the  leading  town  in  Kentucky 
trade,  politics,  religion,  and  social  life.  Each  year  there 
after,  until  the  Pennsylvania  Canal  was  ready  for  use  and 
steamboat  navigation  on  the  Ohio  had  facilitated  the 
transportation  of  merchandise  from  the  East  to  Ken 
tucky,  the  young  merchant  traversed  the  great  wilderness 
with  an  armed  party,  camping  out  at  night  and  sleeping 
on  his  rifle,  purchased  his  stock  in  Philadelphia,  and  con 
veyed  it  to  Danville,  using  for  part  of  the  route  covered 
wagons  drawn  by  Conestoga  horses,  but  for  the  roadless 
mountains  and  forests  pack-horses  and  mules.  The  diffi 
culties  and  dangers  of  this  mode  of  transportation  at  that 
time  required  courage  and  energy  on  the  part  of  the  fron 
tier  merchant.  As  he  prospered  he  established  a  branch 
store  at  Stamford  and  a  bagging  factory,  with  ropewalk, 
at  Danville.  He  organized  and  became  president  of  the 
local  bank,  and  conducted  it  successfully  for  a  great  many 
years,  turning  it  over  to  his  successor  in  thrifty  and  sound 
condition.  During  the  War  of  1812  he  was  a  contractor 
on  a  large  scale  for  furnishing  supplies  to  the  Western 
army.  All  his  business  engagements  were  promptly  met. 
A  note  with  his  name  on  it  wras  never  protested.  His 
business  enterprises  were  uniformly  successful.  For  many 
years  he  was  reputed  to  be  the  richest  man  in  Kentucky, 
and  one  of  the  most  cordial  in  his  hospitality.  His  estate 
of  Woodlawn,  the  front  gate  of  which  was  but  a  short 
half-mile  from  Danville,  was  as  beautiful  as  blue-grass 
slopes,  noble  forest  trees,  and  good  taste  in  landscape  could 
make  it.  The  view  from  the  house  was  through  the 
glades  and  avenues  of  a  noble  park.  In  the  march  of 
improvement  railroads  have  so  intersected  this  property, 
and  houses  have  been  so  built  upon  it,  that  the  original 


THE  FATHER.  5 

landmarks  have  disappeared.     His  winter  residence  was  a 
large  brick  mansion  in  Danville. 

In  his  day,  James  Birney  was  one  of  the  noted  men  of 
Kentucky.  From  one  end  of  the  State  to  the  other  his 
name  was  familiar  in  every  household.  His  sayings  were 
quoted  where  he  was  not  personally  known.  His  char 
acter  was  strongly  marked.  Any  old  citizen  of  that  State 
will  remember  him  as  a  very  positive  man.  He  had  no 
quality  of  a  trimmer.  One  knew  always  where  to  find 
him.  No  one  ever  doubted  that  he  would  be  true  to  his 
friends,  or  imagined  that  he  would  give  back  a  hair's- 
breadth  before  his  enemies.  His  courage,  both  moral  and 
physical,  had  been  proved  in  the  numerous  emergencies 
of  frontier  life.  He  was  full  of  generous  impulses  ;  easily 
excited  by  meanness  or  disingenuousness ;  strong  in  his 
personal  attachments  ;  quick  in  his  resentments  ;  and 
frank,  bold,  and  vehement  in  asserting  a  right  or  declar 
ing  an  opinion.  He  took  great  interest  in  studying  theo 
ries  of  government  and  the  causes  of  the  rise  and  fall  of 
nations.  The  "  Federalist "  was  his  favorite  book,  and 
next  to  it,  Gibbon's  "  Rome."  In  politics  he  was  a  Con 
servative,  with  Federalist  tendencies.  Washington  was  his 
beau  ideal  of  a  patriot  and  statesman,  and  Chief  Justice 
Marshall  of  a  judge.  He  dissected  Jefferson  and  his  opin 
ions  with  a  rough-edged  scalpel.  He  believed  cordially  in 
a  protective  tariff,  and  cherished  the  warmest  friendship, 
political  and  personal,  for  its  advocate,  "  Harry  Clay,"  re 
ceiving  him  as  an  honored  guest  on  his  frequent  visits 
to  Danville,  and  reading  all  his  speeches,  or,  worse  still 
(horresco  referens),  making  the  writer  of  this  sketch  read 
them  to  him.  He  admired  Calhoun  for  his  intellect,  but 
detested  his  theories.  For  General  Jackson  he  cherished 
an  antipathy  that  amounted  to  rancor,  and  the  feeling 
prepossessed  him  against  the  general's  personal  and  po 
litical  friends. 


0  JAMES  G.  BIKNTEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Into  the  shaping  and  direction  of  local  affairs,  includ 
ing  politics,  he  threw  himself  with  ardor,  firmly  refusing, 
however,  to  seek  or  hold  office.  He  was  the  main-stay  of 
the  Clay  party  in  Mercer  County  up  to  about  1828,  when 
his  active  business  life  was  suddenly  interrupted.  The 
rustling  of  a  dry  corn-blade  in  a  puff  of  wind  caused  a 
spirited  horse  to  spring  from  him  as  he  was  mounting ; 
the  fall  fractured  his  thigh-bone,  and  condemned  him  to 
his  bed  for  a  year  and  to  crutches  for  life. 

In  religion  he  was  a  zealous  rather  than  orthodox  Epis 
copalian.  The  support  of  that  Church  was  with  him  a 
matter  of  traditional  family  honor,  and  when  his  son 
joined  the  Presbyterians  his  pride  was  deeply  wounded. 
This  always  remained  a  tender  spot  with  him.  To  his 
efforts  and  liberality  were  chiefly  due  the  erection  of  the 
Danville  Episcopal  Church  building,  about  1828,  and  the 
maintenance  of  a  regular  ministry.  Every  Sunday  morn 
ing  he  occupied  his  large  front  pew  at  the  left  of  the  chan 
cel  and  joined  in  the  responses ;  and,  generally,  he  had  the 
minister  home  with  him  to  a  good  dinner  with  friends. 
All  this  did  not  prevent  his  discussing  Church  history 
with  striking  disrespect  for  priestly  rule  and  handling 
some  of  the  Old  Testament  worthies  without  gloves.  He 
was  the  first  man  the  writer  ever  heard  descant  upon  cer 
tain  weaknesses  in  the  characters  of  David  and  Solomon. 
It  was  a  pleasure  to  him  to  engage  theological  students  or 
ministers  in  controversy  upon  points  of  ecclesiastical  his 
tory  or  doctrinal  differences,  and  puzzle  them  with  his 
irony,  raillery,  and  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  au 
thorities.  His  reading  had  been  extensive — chiefly  in  poli 
tics,  biography,  history,  and  travels  —  and  he  used  his 
knowledge  with  shrewd  common  sense,  expressing  himself 
with  spirit,  force,  and  often  with  wit.  He  knew  little 
Latin  and  no  Greek,  but  his  conversation  was  bright 
enough  to  interest  men  of  learning.  Students,  tutors,  and 


THE  FATHER,  7 

professors  from  Center  College  were  his  frequent  visitors, 
and  few  intelligent  travelers  passed  through  Danville  with 
out  calling  on  the  invalid.  He  received  all  with  a  boun 
tiful  hospitality  that  characterized  Kentucky  in  the  first 
half  of  the  century.  Though  his  sarcasm  and  frankness 
made  him  a  terror  to  hypocrites  and  time-servers,  he  was 
respectful  to  the  sincere  and  civil  to  strangers.  To  women 
he  was  gentle  as  summer,  and  to  children,  tender  and  in 
dulgent.  To  his  poor  neighbors  he  was  kind;  of  poor 
tenants  he  exacted  no  rent ;  and  though  one  or  two  stu 
dents  were  always  members  of  his  family,  they  were  such 
on  the  footing  of  friends  only.  He  invited  those  he  liked 
and  admired.  In  money  matters  he  was  liberal,  refusing, 
however,  to  indorse  notes  for  any  except  a  few  intimate 
friends.  Woodlawn  was  the  home  of  twenty-odd  slaves. 
These  were  never  punished  or  sold,  being  regarded  as  held 
for  their  protection  as  well  as  his  convenience.  All  the 
harsh  features  of  slavery  were  toned  down.  The  overseer 
was  obliged  to  manage  without  the  whip,  and  got  along 
peacefully  with  the  slaves  if  not  profitably  for  the  owner. 
Most  of  the  negroes  had  been  born  on  the  estate,  and  they 
looked  upon  their  master  with  mingled  fear  and  affection. 
It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  they  took  the  farming 
and  rope-spinning  life  easily;  they  were  almost  as  lazy 
as  the  fifteen  to  twenty  pure- bred  mares  and  colts  that 
roamed  through  the  rich  pastures,  costly  pets  of  the 
owner. 

It  was  the  custom  among  the  farmers  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Danville  to  visit  town  every  Saturday.  That  was 
the  great  day  for  seeing  each  other  on  business,  pleasure, 
or  politics.  Early  in  the  morning  of  that  day,  during  the 
years  after  his  accident,  when  the  weather  permitted, 
James  Birney  was  driven  to  town.  His  usual  seat  was  in 
the  store  belonging  to  David  Bell,  his  former  clerk,  his 
successor  and  life-long  friend,  and  there  he  held  a  grand 


8  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

levee  until  late  in  the  afternoon.  It  seemed  to  the  writer, 
who  was  often  his  grandfather's  attendant  on  such  occa 
sions,  that  hardly  any  tradesman,  professional  man,  or 
farmer  failed  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  venerable  cripple. 
He  had  a  kind  word  or  inquiry  or  jest  for  each  one,  and 
his  chair  was  often  surrounded  by  a  group  amused  at  his 
repartees,  wit,  and  rollicking  humor ;  in  all  which,  how 
ever,  he  maintained  a  certain  personal  dignity,  never  utter 
ing  a  coarse  word.  The  man  who  forgot  himself  so  far  as 
to  utter  one  in  his  presence  never  escaped  without  an 
effective  rebuke. 

About  two  years  after  James  Birney  opened  his  store 
at  Danville  he  married  Miss  Read,  one  of  the  daughters 
of  the  political  exile  mentioned  in  the  first  chapter.  Tra 
dition  makes  her  beautiful  and  intellectual.  Her  parents 
did  not  think  the  handsome  and  energetic  young  merchant 
a  suitable  mate  for  her,  and  the  young  people  were  obliged 
to  make  a  Gretna  Green  affair  of  the  marriage.  Her  home 
was  a  happy  one,  but  she  died  in  1795,  leaving  a  son  and 
infant  daughter,  James  Gillespie  and  Anna  Maria.  The 
latter  married  John  J.  Marshall,  well  known  in  Kentucky 
annals  as  a  law  reporter  and  judge.  She  was  the  mother 
of  James  Birney  Marshall,  who  earned  distinction  as  an 
editor,  and  of  Humphrey  Marshall,  who  was  successively 
Representative  in  Congress,  Minister  to  China,  and  Con 
federate  major-general.  For  many  years  she  was  a  leader 
in  society  at  Frankfort,  the  State  capital.  Her  reputation 
for  conversational  talent  and  general  ability  is  one  of  the 
social  traditions  of  Kentucky. 


CHAPTER  III. 
INFANCY  AND   YOUTH. 


JAMES  GILLESPIE  BIRXEY  was  born,  February  4, 
1792,  at  Danville.  After  the  death  of  his  mother,  he  and 
his  sister  were  placed  under  the  care  of  Mrs.  Doyle,  the 
oldest  sister  of  his  father.  She  was  a  widow  and  childless, 
and,  at  the  request  of  her  brother,  came  from  Ireland  to 
take  charge  of  his  two  children  and  preside  over  his  house 
hold — duties  for  which  an  affectionate  nature,  sound 
sense,  good  education,  agreeable  manners,  and  fervent 
piety  peculiarly  qualified  her.  She  continued  to  perform 
them  until  the  children  were  grown  and  until  the  second 
marriage  of  her  brother.  His  house  was  her  home  until 
her  decease,  about  the  year  1834.  Her  nephew  could  not 
have  been  dearer  to  her  if  he  had  been  her  own  son ;  and 
he  returned  her  affection.  Whenever  he  was  at  Wood- 
lawn,  he  passed  much  of  his  time  with  her.  During  his 
residence  in  Alabama  he  wrote  to  her  regularly  and  fre 
quently  ;  and  when  the  writer  was  sent,  in  1828,  to 
Woodlawn  on  a  long  visit  it  was  strictly  enjoined  on 
him  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  amuse  and  make  her 
happy.  Dear  old  lady !  how  vividly  I  remember  her  ven 
erable  figure,  with  the  shawl,  spectacles,  knitting,  and 
prayer-book  ! 

The  boy  grew  up  among  numerous  relatives  and  con 
nections.  '  His  father's  married  sisters,  Mrs.  Gillespie  and 


10  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Mrs.  Whelan,  with  their  husbands  and  children,  migrated 
from  Ireland  and  settled  near  Danville,  about  1795. 
These  families  were  intelligent  and  in  good  circumstances. 
Mr.  Gillespie  bought  a  valuable  farm  about  a  mile  from 
Danville,  and  Mr.  Whelan  another,  four  miles  distant, 
and  extending  to  the  precipitous  bluffs  and  romantic 
scenery  of  Dick's  River. 

The  relatives  on  the  mother's  side  greatly  exceeded  in 
numbers  those  on  the  father's.  There  were  two  uncles 
and  five  aunts,  all  of  whom  had  married,  and,  up  to  1808, 
had  their  homes  in  Mercer  County.  There  was  no  lack  of 
cousins ;  the  motherless  child  had  many  companions  and 
playmates  among  them.  The  attachments  formed  then 
were  generally  strong  enough  to  survive  the  political  dif 
ferences  of  mature  years. 

The  boy  was  not  timid,  shy,  or  dreamy  ;  he  was  sturdy, 
self-possessed,  and  gifted  with  strong  common  sense.  He 
had  inherited  a  healthful  and  robust  constitution.  He 
was  not  only  vigorous,  but  active  and  bright.  He  took 
pleasure  in  athletic  exercises ;  at  an  early  age  he  learned 
to  ride,  shoot,  swim,  skate,  and  dance.  He  was  fond  of 
the  companionship  of  girls.  His  father  was  proud  of  his 
beauty  and  promise.  In  his  treatment  of  him  the  father 
was  governed  by  the  maxim  of  the  ancient  sage,  "  Respect 
youth."  The  intercourse  between  father  and  son  was 
marked  during  their  lives  by  affection,  confidence,  and  the 
deferential  manner  of  the  old  school.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  the  rod  was  not  used.  The  father's  pride  and  the 
aunt's  gentleness  alike  forbade  it.  The  boy  grew  up  frank, 
truthful,  manly,  self-respecting,  and  courageous.  In  those 
days  brutality  was  tolerated  in  schools;  the  teacher  was 
called  the  "  master," .  and  the  emblem  of  his  authority, 
the  rod,  lay  on  his  desk.  James  did  not  escape  discipline ; 
when  he  had  committed  a  fault  he  scorned  to  shelter  him 
self  by  evasion,  but  most  of  his  troubles  at  school  were  due 


INFANCY  AND  YOUTH.  H 

to  the  fact  that  he  was  always  ready  with  his  fists  to  aid  a 
comrade  against  heavy  odds. 

At  eleven  years  of  age  he  was  sent  to  Transylvania 
University,  at  Lexington.  His  companions  were  a  son  of 
ex-Governor  Isaac  Shelby  and  George  Eobertson,  who 
afterward  became  a  famous  judge  and  was  honored  by  hav 
ing  a  Kentucky  county  named  after  him.  He  remained 
at  that  institution,  vacations  excepted,  until  the  New 
Year's  holidays  of  1805-'6,  when  he  returned  home  to  en 
ter  a  "  seminary  "  which  had  been  opened  at  Danville  by 
Dr.  Priestly.  During  his  summer-vacation  visit,  when 
he  was  thirteen,  there  occurred  an  incident  that  illustrates 
his  character.  He  went  with  two  other  boys,  one  a  cousin, 
to  a  piece  of  deep  water,  to  swim.  He  was  a  good  swim 
mer,  his  cousin  a  beginner.  At  a  distance  from  the  shore 
a  rail  was  driven  into  the  bottom  of  the  pond.  Its  place 
was  marked  by  a  float.  On  its  top,  a  foot  or  two  below 
the  surface,  one  might  pause  and  rest.  On  this  James 
stood  and  encouraged  his  cousin  to  swim  out  to  him.  The 
attempt  was  a  failure.  The  boy  sank.  James  swam  to 
him,  and  was  trying  to  help  him  when  he  was  clasped  and 
pulled  under  the  water ;  but  he  extricated  himself  and 
succeeded  in  placing  the  boy  upon  the  rail.  He  then 
swam  ashore,  rested,  and  returning  brought  his  comrade 
out  in  safety.  While  the  danger  was  at  its  greatest,  the 
companion,  who  was  on  the  shore,  shouted  to  James  to 
save  himself.  Eeferring  to  this  just  after  his  escape,  he 
said,  quietly,  "  It  never  entered  my  mind  to  leave  him." 
Many  anecdotes  of  his  unselfishness  and  courage  were  cur 
rent  among  his  relatives  in  the  days  of  my  boyhood.  I 
give  this  one  because  I  heard  it  from  the  cousin.  It  is 
given  in  Green's  "  Life  of  Birney,"  published  in  1844. 

The  next  two  years  were  spent  in  studies  preparatory 
to  an  intended  course  in  the  College  of  New  Jersey.  What 
these  studies  were  and  what  his  teacher  thought  of  his 


12  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

character  at  the  close  of  this  period,  and  what,  nearly  a 
half-century  later,  he  thought  of  his  teacher  may  be  gath 
ered  from  the  following  documents  : 

On  the  first  page  of  a  large  scrap-book  made  up  by 
James  G.  Birney  is  this  entry  in  his  own  handwriting,  in 
1850: 

February  4th. — For  my  grandson  and  namesake  (James  G. 
Birney,  Jr.,  oldest  son  of  James  Birney)  at  Cincinnati: 

This  book,  unlike  most  other  things,  will  be  more  valuable  as 
it  advances  in  age.  When  you  come  to  be  a  half-century  old,  or 
as  old  as  I  am,  it  will  be  to  you  a  remembrancer  of  old  times.  I 
also  send  you  with  it  a  letter  which  you  can  keep.  You  will  see 
it  was  written  by  a  preceptor  of  mine  who,  I  need  hardly  tell  after 
such  evidence  as  his  letter  affords,  was  a  learned  man.  He  was 
considerably  advanced  in  age,  and  had  had  great  experience  in 
teaching.  He  had  married,  some  twenty  or  five  and  twenty  years 
before,  a  Miss  McBride,  whose  family  lived  in  or  near  Harrods- 
burg,  and  about  that  time  had  taught  a  school,  I  think,  in  Bairds- 
town,  which  was  attended  by  many  young  men  who  afterward 
became  distinguished  in  Kentucky — Felix  Grundy,  John  Rowan, 
John  Pope,  and,  I  believe,  Joseph  V.  Davis  were  among  them. 
He  then  removed,  if  I  mistake  not,  to  Baltimore,  where  he  had  a 
school.  Then  he  returned  to  Kentucky  and  settled  at  Danville. 
He  was  probably  fickle  and  unsteady  as  to  his  residence;  for, 
although  he  had  a  numerous  school  when  I  left  it  to  go  to 
Princeton,  he  had  gone  away  before  my  return  in  about  two  years 
and  a  half.  I  have  never  heard  of  him  since.  He  was  a  member, 
though  by  no  means  an  active  one,  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
and  doubtless  quite  a  learned  man  of  those  times. 

Letter  from  James  Priestly  to  James  Birney,  Esq.,  father  of  James 
G.  Birney. 

DANTILLE,  March,  30,  1808 

DEAR  Sm:  As  you  have  determined  rightly,  I  think,  in  the 
present  state  of  the  Western  country,  to  send  your  son  to  a  dis. 
tant  seat  of  learning,  I  will  recount  to  you  before  he  goes,  as  far 
as  I  can  recollect,  the  studies  he  has  pursued  and  the  text-books 
he  has  used  under  my  direction  for  the  last  two  years.  He  gave 


INFANCY  AND   YOUTH.  13 

but  little  of  his  time  to  the  learned  languages  and  none  to  geog 
raphy,  as  I  understood  he  had  studied  these  as  far  as  is  common 
before  he  came  to  me.  Part  of  Euclid,  too,  he  had  learned  before. 
With  me  he  studied  the  fifth  and  sixth  books  of  Euclid,  Simson's 
"Plane  Trigonometry,"  the  greater  part  of  common  arithmetic 
and  algebra,  as  far  as  the  solution  of  simple  equations,  Murray's 
" Grammar "  without  the  exercises,  Watts's  " Logic  "  and  "Im 
provement  of  the  Mind,"  Ferguson's  "Lectures"  and  "Astrono 
my,"  Blair's  "Lectures,"  Adams  and  Rennet's  "Roman  An 
tiquities,"  Paley's  "Moral  Philosophy  "  and  "Natural Theology," 
Blackstone's  "Commentaries,"  and  part  of  St.  Pierre's  "Studies 
of  Nature."  In  the  second  year,  a  little  time  was  employed  in 
classical  learning,  and  he  read  three  comedies  of  Terence,  one 
book  of  Tacitus's  "Annals,  "and  went  hastily  over  the  critical 
epistles  of  Horace,  and  three  books  of  his  odes,  and  read  a  book 
or  two  of  Homer.  A  number  of  these  studies  have  not  been  re 
viewed,  as  I  entertained  for  a  while  the  hope  of  resuming  them 
in  a  course  of  lectures,  of  adding  the  many  important  ones  that 
have  not  been  touched,  of  referring  to  the  best  authors  on  each 
subject,  and  thoroughly  investigating  the  whole.  But  this  I 
found  to  be,  in  my  situation,  impossible.  One  person  is  not 
equal  to  the  task  of  preparing  good  lectures  on  every  subject ; 
nor,  if  he  even  adopts  the  matured  works  of  the  best  professors, 
can  he  study  them  all  and  make  a  proper  use  of  them  while  he 
must  at  the  same  time  superintend  the  conduct  of  all  the  classes 
in  a  seminary  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  and  instruct  them 
all. 

It  is  proper,  therefore,  that  James  should  reside  some  years  at 
a  college,  where  there  are  many  professors,  with  a  good  library 
and  apparatus.  If  the  rules  of  the  place  will  allow  him  to  live 
in  a  private  house  and  to  attend  the  lectures  of  several  professors 
wTith  different  classes,  as  in  the  universities  of  Britain,  he  may 
pass  those  years  with  great  profit.  What  he  has  already  done 
will  render  some  studies  lighter  and  more  pleasant,  and  leave  him 
time  and  spirits  for  others  that  will  be  quite  new  to  him,  so  that 
he  may  keep  way  with  more  than  one  class.  I  profited  most 
when  I  began  again  with  those  who  had  never  studied  the  same 
things  before. 

I  mention  a  private  family,  because  I  think  he  does  not  need 


14  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

the  discipline  of  academic  rules  to  keep  him  to  proper  hours  and 
from  bad  company ;  and  because  it  would  keep  him  from  those 
intrusions  which  can  not  be  avoided  if  he  lodges  in  a  college. 

As  far  as  I  have  had  an  opportunity  of  observing,  his  conduct 
has  been  perfectly  correct,  and  has  appeared  to  proceed  from  right 
disposition ;  so  that  I  have  reason  to  hope  he  will  derive  from  an 
advantageous  situation  all  the  benefit  it  is  capable  of  yielding  to 
the  most  prudent. 

With  the  best  wishes  for  his  good  and  your  satisfaction, 
I  am  sir,  your  obedient  humble  servant, 

JAMES  PRIESTLY. 

JAMES  BIRNEY,  Esq. 

The  character  of  this  youth,  who  was  held  in  such 
high  respect  by  his  instructor,  had  been  molded  under 
uncommon  influences.  The  follies,  errors,  and  bad  habits 
so  often  found  in  only  sons  of  rich  parents  had  been  in 
great  part  prevented  by  the  strong  common  sense  of  his 
father,  the  watchful  love  of  his  pious  aunt,  the  constant 
moral  pressure  of  a  respectable  family  connection,  and, 
better  than  all,  by  his  well-balanced  faculties  and  fortu 
nate  temperament.  The  social  life  about  him  was  not  that 
of  an  ordinary  frontier  settlement.  Danville  was  in  the 
very  heart  of  that  marvelously  fertile  region  known  to 
Americans  generally  as  the  "  blue-grass  country,"  and  to 
Kentuckians  as  the  "garden  of  the  world."  Its  soil, 
constantly  renewed  by  the  decay  of  the  abundant  lime 
stone  ingredients,  is  inexhaustible ;  even  the  Shenandoah 
Valley  of  Virginia  does  not  reward  so  richly  the  labor  of 
the  farmer.  And  its  pasturage  has  given  to  Kentucky 
acknowledged  pre-eminence  for  race-horses  and  fine  beeves. 
To  this  land  of  milk  and  honey  the  intelligent  and  advent 
urous  classes  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and  Maryland 
began  to  migrate  about  the  close  of  the  Eevolutionary 
"War.  Many  of  the  immigrants  had  been  officers  in  the 
army.  Some  of  them  were  men  of  means  and  substance. 
Not  a  few  had  held  civil  office  and  took  a  live  interest  in 


INFANCY  AND  YOUTH.  15 

public  affairs.  They  were  hardy  and  courageous  men,  able 
to  bear  the  severe  trials  of  life  in  the  forest,  and  to  meas 
ure  strength  and  cunning  with  the  Indian  foe.  Their 
descendants  inherit  from  them  thews,  sinews,  tall  stature, 
and  fighting  qualities.  At  an  early  day  the  control  of  the 
site  of  Danville  and  its  vicinity  fell  into  the  hands  of  men 
of  means,  who  took  pains  to  attract  to  it  a  good  class 
of  settlers.  Among  them  were  Isaac  Shelby,  the  hero  of 
King's  Mountain,  afterward  governor  of  the  State  and 
secretary  of  war  ;  Benjamin  Sebastian,  long  a  judge  of  the 
Court  of  Appeals ;  and  many  others  who  became  promi 
nent  in  national  or  State  affairs,  including  Joshua  Barbee 
and  the  members  of  the  political  debating  club  of  which 
an  account  is  given  in  the  next  chapter.  Some  of  these 
men  were  members  of  the  learned  professions  ;  all  of  them 
had  been  educated  by  the  sharp  experiences  of  frontier 
life.  They  were  men  of  thought  and  action,  qualified  to 
lay  the  foundations  of  a  State. 

For  a  great  many  years  Danville  was  the  thought  cen 
ter  of  Kentucky.  The  numerous  constitutional  conven 
tions  were  held  there,  also  the  synods.  It  was  the  perma 
nent  headquarters  of  Kentucky  Presbyterianism.  In  1808 
it  had  only  begun  to  feel  the  competition  for  leadership 
by  Lexington  and  Louisville. 

The  social  tone  of  Danville  was  not  favorable  to  the 
ordinary  vices  of  frontier  life.  Theology  and  politics  were 
more  in  favor  than  the  race-course  and  gaming-table. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ANTI-SLAVERY  INFLUENCES  IN  YOUTH. 

WHEN"  James  G.  Birncy  left  home  for  college  he  was 
in  his  seventeenth  year.  Every  advantage  that  wealth  and 
a  father's  love  could  procure  had  been  his  ;  his  literary 
and  scientific  education  had  been  the  best  to  be  had  in 
Kentucky,  and  his  social  opportunities  and  immediate 
surroundings  left  little  to  be  desired.  There  are  no  in 
dications  that  he  had  been  spoiled ;  he  appears  to  have 
been  a  robust,  intelligent,  and  ambitious  youth  of  good 
habits. 

As  the  interest  of  his  countrymen  in  his  biography  is 
due  chiefly  to  his  subsequent  anti-slavery  career,  it  is  im 
portant  to  note  the  influences  in  which  this  had  its  origin. 
The  foundations  of  his  abolitionism  were  doubtless  laid  in 
his  early  youth. 

Though  his  grandfather  Read  and  his  father  had  be 
come  slaveholders,  they  always  professed  a  willingness  to 
emancipate,  if  Kentucky  could  be  made  a  free  State.  In 
1792  they  had  taken  an  active  part  in  promoting  the  elec 
tion  of  the  Rev.  David  Rice,  a  noted  abolitionist,  to  the 
Constitutional  Convention,  and  in  1709  they  voted  for 
delegates  to  a  similar  convention,  who  were  pledged  to 
support  a  constitutional  provision  in  favor  of  abolition. 
The  pious  aunt  who  reared  him  had  always  refused,  on 
religious  principles,  to  own  slaves  or  to  accept  their  per 
sonal  services  without  compensation. 


ANTI-SLAVERY  INFLUENCES  IN  YOUTH.          17 

The  home  influences  were  powerfully  re-enforced  and 
directed  by  the  Eev.  David  Rice.  He  was  pastor  of  the 
Danville  Presbyterian  church  for  many  years  during  the 
youth  of  James  G.  Birney,  and  there  being  no  Episcopa 
lian  services  in  the  town,  the  boy  and  his  aunt  generally 
attended  that  church.  Mr.  Rice  was  a  friend  and  a  fre 
quent  guest  of  the  family,  and  paid  much  attention  to  the 
son,  who  conceived  an  affection  for  him,  and  in  after  life 
gratefully  remembered  and  spoke  of  him.  In  the  State 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1792  Mr.  Rice  was  the  leader 
of  the  members  who  favored  immediate  abolition.  His 
speech  was  clear  and  able,  his  conclusion  being  in  the  fol 
lowing  words :  "  Therefore,  I  give  it  as  my  opinion  that 
the  FIRST  thing  to  be  done  is  to  resolve  UNCOXDITIOX- 
ALLY  to  put  an  end  to  slavery  in  this  State." 

The  speech  was  reprinted  many  times.  I  have  before 
me  a  copy  of  an  edition  published  in  X ew  York  in  1812. 
It  makes  an  octavo  pamphlet,  large  size,  twelve  pages,  in 
small  type,  and  double  columns.  Its  reasoning  through 
out  classes  Mr.  Rice  with  the  uncompromising  immediate 
abolitionists  of  his  day,  and  refutes  the  charge  of  gradu 
alism  brought  against  him  by  Mr.  Davidson,  the  historian 
of  Kentucky  Presbyteriauism.  Mr.  Rice  was  an  earnest 
man  of  definite  convictions  and  an  eloquent  speaker,  and 
he  frequently  preached  against  the  sin  of  slavery,  thus 
sowing  the  seed  which  was  to  yield  a  harvest  many  years 
after. 

The  Rev.  David  Barrow,  of  Mount  Sterling,  preached 
before  1808  several  anti-slavery  sermons  at  Danville,  which 
were  always  favorably  remembered  by  my  father.  He  was 
the  author  of  a  widely  distributed  pamphlet,  entitled  "  In 
voluntary,  Unmerited,  Perpetual,  Absolute,  Hereditary 
Slavery  examined  on  the  Principles  of  Kature,  Reason, 
Justice,  Policy,  and  Scripture,"  which  advocated  imme 
diate  abolition ;  and  in  1808  he  was  generally  regarded  as 


18  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  V||IS  TIMES. 

the  most  influential  and  able  leader  of  the  anti-slavery 
Baptists  in  Kentucky. 

The  Baptist  Church  was  the  first  one  organized  in  the 
State ;  it  dates  from  1781.  From  that  year  until  the 
War  of  1812  it  was  the  most  numerous  and  powerful  re 
ligious  organization  in  Kentucky.  About  1787  Joshua 
Carman,  a  Baptist  elder  from  Virginia,  began  a  movement 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  which  f|pmany  years  agitated 
both  the  Church  and  State.  It  wasi  doubtless  the  leading 
cause  of  the  political  excitements  of  1792  and  1799. 

In  1787  Elder  Carman  was  organizing  church  socie 
ties  in  Kentucky,  chiefly  in  Hardin,  La  Rue,  and  Nelson 
Counties.  Between  that  year  and  1801,  when  he  emi 
grated  to  Ohio,  he  was  pastor  of  several  leading  Baptist 
churches.  For  fourteen  years  he  preached  immediate 
abolition  and  no  Christian  fellowship  with  slave-holders. 
In  1789  his  church  sent  up  to  Salem  Association  the 
query :  "  Is  it  lawful  in  the  sight  of  God  for  a  member  of 
Christ's  Church  to  keep  his  fellow-creatures  in  perpetual 
slavery?"  In  1797  he  was  present  at  the  General  Con 
ference  in  Ohio,  at  which  the  Miami  Association  was  or 
ganized,  "  with  a  view,"  Dunlevy  says  in  his  history  of  that 
association  (page  133),  "to  prevent  the  newly  organized 
body  from  holding  any  correspondence  with  slave-hold 
ers  " ;  and  he  succeeded  in  his  object. 

Elder  Carman  was  an  able  man  and  "  an  easy,  fluent, 
and  pleasant  speaker,"  and  he  made  numerous  converts 
to  abolitionism  among  the  most  zealous  and  efficient 
preachers  of  his  denomination.  The  first  was  Josiah 
Dodge ;  and  the  movement  started  by  Carman  spread 
until,  before  1808,  the  following  leading  Baptist  preachers 
were  among  its  adherents :  Carter  Tarrant,  John  Sutton, 
Donald  Holmes,  Jacob  Gregg,  George  Smith,  George 
Stokes  Smith,  Cornelius  Duese,  John  H.  Owen,  Thomas 
Whitman,  John  Murphy,  Elijah  Davidson,  William  Buck- 


ANTI-SLAVERY  INFLUENCES  IN   YOUTH.          19 

ley,  David  Barrow,  William  Hickman,  James  Garrard,  and 
Ambrose  Dudley.  All  of  these,  except  the  last  three, 
maintained  the  high  standard  of  immediatism  during  . 
their  continuance  in  the  pulpit.  C-^LLJIlPj  ^  his  "  T^V^ry  * 
of  KenJu£kxIL(page.  419),,  states  their  position  as  follows : 
They  "  declared  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  alleging  that 
no  friendship  should  be  extended  to  slave-holders,  as  slav 
ery  in  every  branch  of  it,  both  in  principle  and  practice, 
was  a  sinful  and  abominable  system,  fraught  with  peculiar 
evils  and  miseries,  which  every  good  man  ought  to  aban 
don  and  bear  testimony  against." 

It  does  not  enter  into  the  plan  of  this  work  to  describe 
the  schisms  in  the  Baptist  Church  of  Kentucky  caused 
by  dissensions  in  regard  to  the  course  to  be  pursued  in 
the  treatment  of  slavery.  This  was  acknowledged  to  be 
a  sin,  but  the  majority  of  church-members  were  unwilling 
to  make  it  a  cause  of  exclusion  from  the  Church.  In  the 
evasive  language  of  a  church  body  in  1789 :  "  The  asso 
ciation  judge  it  improper  to  enter  into  so  important  and 
critical  matter  at  present."  The  Baptists  were  divided 
into  "  regulars  "  and  "  separatists."  An  "  Emancipation 
Association"  was  formed  in  Nelson  County,  and  the 
"Licking  Locust  Association,"  abolitionist,  contained  a 
large  number  of  churches.  For  details  the  reader  is  re 
ferred  to  Sgencer's  "  History  of  the  Kentucky  Baptists,"  / 
to  the  histories  "oTKentucky  by  Collins  and  by  Shaler,  and 
to  Benedict's  "  History  of  the  Baptists."  "  Biographical 
Sketches  of  the  Kentucky  Emancipationists  "  were  pub 
lished  by  the  Eev.  Carter  Tarrant,  and  short  ones  may  be 
found  in  the  works  above  referred  to. 

The  popular  sentiment  at  Danville  had  been  decidedly 
anti-slavery  from  the  first.  For  many  years  the  town,  to 
use  Sh^ler's  expression  (page  121),  "was  the  center  of 
the  State  life."  From  1786  to  1790  a  political  club  ex 
isted  there  which  "  was  composed  of  about  thirty  of  the 


20  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

brightest  spirits  of  the  time  who  were  resident  in  and 
about  this  little  town.  On  its  roll  we  find  the  names 
of  many  of  those  who  had  already  or  were  afterward  to 
lead  the  State  in  the  paths  of  peace  and  war "  (Shaler, 
page  113).  Among  its  members  were  William  McDowell 
(lawyer  and  afterward  judge  of  the  United  States  District 
Court),  Samuel  McDowell  (who  presided  at  eight  State 
constitutional  conventions),  Henry  limes,  Christopher 
Greenup,  Robert  Craddock,  Thomas  Todd,  George  Mutor, 
Peyton  Short,  James  Speed,  Abe  Buford,  Benjamin  Se 
bastian,  Willis  Green,  and  William  McClung,  whose  names 
are  identified  with  the  history  of  Kentucky.  The  record 
£>^  the  club  shows  that  their  debates  were  confined  to" 
great  questions  of  polity.  They  discussed  the  proposed 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  article  by  article,  and 
voted  to  strike  out  the  clause  prohibiting  Congress  from 
preventing  the  importation  of  slaves  until  1808.  It  was 
probably  owing  to  the  influence  of  the  members  of  this 
club  that  the  Rev.  David  Rice  was  elected  delegate  to  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1792.  The  question  whether 
Kentucky  should  be  a  free  State  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  made  a  distinct  issue  in  the  election.  For  several 
years  the  people  had  been  greatly  disturbed  by  questions 
of  independence  growing  out  of  the  strong  opposition 
made  to  their  separation  from  Virginia.  There  were  not 
more  than  fifteen  thousand  slaves  in  Kentucky,  and  the 
settlers  did  not  appreciate  the  paramount  importance  of 
the  slavery  question.  George  Nicholas,  an  able  lawyer 
and  politician  from  Virginia  and  a  slaye^liolder,  was  the 
controlling  spirit  of  the  convention  and  drafted  the  Con 
stitution.  This  instrument  forbade  the  importation  of 
slaves  into  the  State  for  sale,  or  of  any  imported  into 
America  since  1789,  and  empowered  the  Legislature  to 
enact  laws  permitting  emancipation. 

The  Constitution  of  1792  was  not  submitted  to  the 


ANTI-SLAVERY  INFLUENCES  IN  YOUTH.         21 

people.  It  had  hardly  gone  into  operation  when  a  strong 
free-State  sentiment  declared  itself.  This  was  general 
among  the  Baptists,  and  also  among  the  Presbyterians,  the 
next  sect  in  numerical  force  and  influence.  It  was  shared 
by  many  of  the  leading  men  in  and  about  Danville.  Pat 
rick  Brown  and  his  brother  William,  of  Nelson  County, 
were  especially  active  in  extending  it.  The  Constitution 
had  provided  that  the  people  might  vote  for  or  against 
a  convention  to  revise  that  instrument.  A  firsLioie  was 
tcf  betaken  in  May,  IT!)  7,  and  a  second  in  May,  1798.  If 
both  these  should  be  in  favor  of  a  convention,  the  Legis 
lature  meeting  in  the  winter  of  1798-'99  was  to  order  an 
election  of  delegates  to  be  held  in  May,  1799 ;  and  the 
convention  was  to  meet  within  three  months  thereafter 
(see  Article .XI. of  Constitution  of  1792).  The  Constitu 
tion  needed  amendment  in  several  particulars ;  but  the 
abolition  of  slavery  was  undoubtedly  the  dominant  issue 
at  the  polls  in  1797  and  1798.  The  vote  in  the  latter 
year  stood  8,804  for  the  convention,  3,049  against.  The 
issue  had  been  fairly  made  up ;  the  State  had  been  thor 
oughly  canvassed ;  and  the  result  showed  that  the  free- 
Slate  party  had  a  majority  of  nearly  three  to  one.  If  the 
convention  could  have  been  held  in  May,  1798,  immedi 
ately  after  the  election,  Kentucky  would  have  been  made 
a  free  State  and  the  causes  of  the  civil  war  destroyed  in 
the  germ. 

On  the  25th  of  June,  1798,  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Law 
was  passed  by  Congress.  The  wave  of  instantaneous  re 
action  against  it  became  a  tidal  one  in  Kentucky.  George 
Nicholas  and  John  Breckenridge,  the  defeated  leaders  of 
the  pro-slavery  faction,  promptly  availed  themselves  of 
the  excitement  to  recover  their  control  of  affairs.  Public 
meetings  were  called  to  denounce  the  Federalists.  At 
these,  Henry  Clay,  then  a  few  months  over  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  was  first  revealed  as  a  popular  orator.  In 


22  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

November,  when  the  Legislature  met,  John  Breckenridge 
offered  what  history  knows  as  "  tha_J£entu€ky  resolu 
tions  of  1798."  They  were  passed  by  both  Houses,  ap 
proved  on  the  16th  of  the  month,  and  forwarded  to  Con 
gress  and  the  Legislatures  of  other  States.  A  hot  answer 
was  returned  by  Massachusetts.  Before  -the  election  in 
May,  1799,  Kentucky  was  ablaze  with  political  excitement 
against  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Law,  and  John  Brecken 
ridge,  Benjamin  Logan,  John  Eowan,  Felix  Grundy,  and 
other  pro-slavery  men  who  were  advocates  of  the  Ken 
tucky  resolutions,  were  elected  delegates  to  the  conven 
tion  called  to  revise  the  Constitution.  The  all-important 
measure  of  making  Kentucky  a  free  State  had  been  blown 
out  of  sight  by  a  gusty  side-wind. 

As  Henry  Clay  and  his  relation  to  slavery  will  neces 
sarily  be  adverted  to  more  than  once  in  subsequent  pages, 
it  may  be  well  to  ascertain  here  the  extent  of  his  co-opera 
tion  in  the  political  movement  beginning  in  1796  to  make 
Kentucky  a  free  State.  Mr.  Clay  arrived  in  Lexington  in 
November,  1797  (Collins's  "History"),  about  six  months 
after  the  first  victory  of  the  free-State  party  at  the  polls. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  April,  1798,  a  few  days  after 
he  became  of  age.  The  second  victory  of  the  free-State 
party  was  in  the  May  following.  Between  the  date  of  his 
arrival  and  the  vote  in  May,  1798,  a  period  of  six  months, 
Mr.  Clay  had,  from  time  to  time,  co-operated  with  the  free- 
State  party  by  advocating  its  objects  in  a  debating  society 
of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  by  writing  some  favorable 
articles  for  a  local  newspaper.  There  is  no  proof  that  he 
made  any  "  stump  speech  "  on  the  subject,  and  it  is  im 
probable  that  he  did  so.  In  the  early  summer  of  1798  he 
was  conspicuous  as  a  speaker  at  the  large  field  meetings 
held  near  Lexington  to  denounce  the  alien  and  sedition 
laws,  working  side  by  side  with  John  Breckenridge  and 
George  Nicholas,  the  leaders  of  the  pro-slavery  faction. 


ANTI-SLAVERY  INFLUENCES  IN  YOUTH.          23 

On  one  occasion  of  this  kind,  he  and  Kicholas  "  were  put 
in  a  carriage  and  drawn  by  the  people  through  the  streets 
of  the  town  arnid  great  shouting  and  huzzaing"  (Schurtz, 
"  Life  of  Clay  ").  During  the  Legislative  excitements  of 
the  ensuing  winter,  and  for  many  years  thereafter,  he  con 
tinued  to  be  identified  with  the  Jefferson  party.  In  April, 
1799,  he  married  Miss  Hart,  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy 
slave-holder,  and  became  the  owner  of  several  slaves.  The 
election  for  delegates  to  the  Constitutional  Convention  took 
place  in  the  following  May  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  Mr.  Clay  voted  the  pro-slavery  ticket  headed  by  his 
friend  John  Breckenridge,  the  pro-slavery  leader,  or  that  he 
was  from  that  time  identified  politically  with  the  anti-free- 
State  men,  and  owed  his  rapid  success  to  their  friendship. 
He  had  become  a  slave-owner,  and  found  an  easy  road  to 
success  through  the  excitement  caused  by  the  passage  of 
the  Alien  and  Sedition  Law.  In  his  famous  Frankfort 
speech  in  1829,  intended  to  open  his  campaign  for  the 
presidency,  Mr.  Clay  conciliated  Korthern  sentiment  by  an 
apology  for  his  course  in  1799,  which,  with  studied  euphe 
mism,  he  described  as  submitting  with  grace  to  the  decis 
ion  of  the  majority.  But  if  during  the  thirty  years  pre 
ceding  this  apology  Mr.  Clay  did  an  act  evidencing  his 
desire  for  a  practical  effort  to  make  Kentucky  a  free  State, 
no  biographer  has  found  it. 

TJie  free-State  sentiment  in  Kentucky  did  not  die  out 
after  1799.  Agitation  continued.  In  1807,  a  Baptist  as 
sociation  that  refused  Christian  fellowship  to  slave-holders 
numbered  twelve  churches  (I,  Spencer,  186).  Manumis 
sions  for  religious  reasons  became  frequent.  In  the  dec 
ade  ending  with  1810,  as  compared  with  the  one  preced 
ing  it,  the  increase  in  the  number  of  freedmen  in  Ken 
tucky  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  per  cent.  In  September, 
1807,  a  State  convention  was  held  in  Woodford  County 
to  form  the  "  Kentucky  Abolition  Society  " ;  a  committee 


24:  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

was  appointed  to  draft  a  constitution,*  and  the  society 
was  formed  and  constitution  adopted  in  a  similar  conven 
tion,  held  September  27,  1808,  at  the  same  place.  The 
members  pledged  themselves:  "First,  to  pursue  such 
measures  as  may  tend  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  a  way 
which  will  consist  with  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the 
Commonwealth." 

This  society  existed  many  years,  and  may  appear  again 
in  this  narrative. 

The  facts  already  given  will  suffice  to  show  that  the 
boyhood  of  James  G.  Birney  was  passed  under  influences 
which  were  distinctly  anti-slavery.  In  his  after  life,  he 
was  accustomed  to  say  he  could  not  remember  a  time 
when  he  believed  slavery  to  be  right.  It  is  not  improb 
able  that  he  had  never  heard,  before  he  went  to  Prince 
ton,  such  a  belief  expressed  by  any  respectable  person. 
He  may  not  have  heard  it  at  Princeton,  for  the  time  had 
not  then  come  when  slavery  was  defended  on  its  merits  or 
on  Biblical  ground. 

*  The  entire  constitution  of  the  "  Kentucky  Abolition  Society  "  was 
republished  October  9,  1822,  in  the  "  Abolition  Intelligencer,"  a  monthly 
paper,  published  at  Shelbyville,  Ky.,  by  the  Rev.  John  Finley  Crowe, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  society. 


CHAPTER   V. 
LIFE  AT  PRINCETON. 

1808. 

JAMES  Gr.  BIRXEY  entered  the  sophomore  class  in  the 
College  of  New  Jersey,  in  April,  1808,  and  was  graduated, 
in  due  course,  September  26,  1810.  At  the  time  of  his 
admission  the  class  numbered  eighteen ;  in  the  junior 
year,  forty ;  and  at  graduation,  twenty-five.  Several  of 
his  classmates  became  famous  in  after  life  as  lawyers  and 
statesmen  :  among  them  were  Eichard  Stockton,  of  Mis 
sissippi,  Oliver  S.  Halstead,  of  New  Jersey,  Kensey  Johns, 
of  Delaware,  A.  De  "Witt  Bruyn,  of  New  York,  Joseph 
Cabell  Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky,  and  George  M.  Dallas, 
of  Pennsylvania.  His  room-mate  at  Nassau  Hall  was 
young  Breckenridge,  and  the  intimacy  thus  formed  rip 
ened  into  a  life-long  friendship.  His  pleasant  relations 
with  Dallas  led  to  his  studying  law  in  the  office  of  Alex 
ander  J.  Dallas,  the  father,  and  to  a  correspondence  which 
extended  over  many  years.  He  was  popular  with  his  class 
mates  and  fellow-students.  Some  of  these  expressed  their 
indignation  when  it  was  announced  that  the  first  honor 
of  the  class  had  been  given  to  another,  but  he  calmed 
them  by  his  declaration  that  the  faculty  had  decided  fair 
ly,  because  he  had  always  been  inferior  in  mathematics  to 
his  successful  competitor.  For  the  abstractions  of  science 
he  had  no  taste  and  a  talent  not  more  than  respectable, 
but  he  greatly  excelled  in  history,  moral  and  political  phi- 


26  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

losophy,  general  literature,  and  the  classics.  He  was  espe 
cially  proficient  in  Latin,  and  read  it  easily  without  a  dic 
tionary — a  practice  he  kept  up  during  life.  Much  of  his 
time  in  college  was  given  to  preparation  for  debates  and 
to  his  studies  in  logic  and  moral  and  political  philosophy, 
pursued  under  the  direction  and  instruction  of  Samuel 
Stanhope  Smith,  Doctor  of  Laws,  Doctor  of  Divinity,  and 
president  of  the  college.  Dr.  Smith  was  a  man  of  strong 
character,  extensive  learning,  and  captivating  eloquence  ; 
he  was  an  expert  logician  and  a  most  plausible  casuist. 
His  qualities  gave  him  great  influence  over  his  pupil,  an 
influence  perceptible  for  many  years  in  the  latter's  course 
in  life..  The  doctor  was  a  Princeton  graduate  ;  he  had 
been  president  of  a  Virginia  college  four  years,  had  re 
turned  to  Princeton  in  1779  as  professor,  and  had  been 
made  president  in  1795.  He  took  a  deep  interest  in  all 
questions  touching  slavery  and  the  African  race.  In  1787 
he  published  an  elaborate  work,  "  An  Essay  on  the  Causes 
of  the  Variety  of  Complexion  and  Figure  in  the  Human 
Species,"  etc.  In  1810  he  published,  at  New  Brunswick, 
a  second  and  enlarged  edition  of  this  work,  with  an  ap 
pendix.  It  is  remarkable  for  the  ingenuity  and  varied 
learning  displayed  by  the  author  in  defense  of  his  theory 
of  the  unity  of  the  race  ;  and  it  is  still  an  interesting  book 
for  the  general  reader.  During  the  stay  of  James  G. 
ney  at  the  college,  Dr.  Smith  was  preparing  for  the  press 
the  great  work  of  his  life,  "  Lectures  on  Moral  and  Political 
Philosophy."  They  were  published  in  1812,  at  Trenton, 
in  two  volumes.  Both  the  "  Essay  "  and  the  "  Lectures  " 
formed  part  of  my  father's  library  in  Alabama,  being  kept 
on  the  same  shelf  with  "  An  Essay  on  the  Treatment  and 
Conversion  of  African  Slaves  in  the  British  Sugar  Colo 
nies,"  by  the  Rev.  James  Eamsay,  M.  A.  (London,  1784) ; 
"  The  History  of  the  Rise,  Progress,  and  Accomplishment 
of  the  Abolition  of  the  African  Slave  Trade  by  the  Brit- 


LIFE  AT  PRINCETON.  27 

ish  Parliament,"  by  Thomas  Clarkson,  M.  A.  (2  vols.,  first 
American  edition,  Philadelphia,  1808).  The  "  Lectures  " 
were  mementos,  and  the  other  works  relics  of  his  college 
life. 

Dr.  Smith  taught  his  pupils  that  men  are  of  one  blood, 
and  that  slavery  is  wrong  morally  and  an  evil  politically ; 
but  that  there  is  no  remedy  except  in  voluntary  manumis 
sion  by  masters ;  that  citizens  acquire  slave  property  under 
the  sanction  of  the  laws,  and  can  not  equitably  be  com 
pelled  to  sacrifice  it ;  that  property  rights  of  all  kinds 
should  be  held  sacred,  etc.  "  What  free  people,"  he  asks, 
in  his  "  Lectures,"  "  would  allow  their  legislature  to  dispose 
in  the  same  manner  of  any  other  portion  of  their  prop 
erty  ? "  This  sophistry  appears  to  the  modern  reader 
wretchedly  bald  ;  but  it  had  its  effect  in  1810.  Imagine 
a  youth  saturated  with  it  for  two  years  and  a  half  by  a 
venerated  preceptor  ! 

During  his  college  life  the  discussion  of  slavery  in  the 
country  wenLon  without  intermission.  In  1804  the  State 
of  New  Jersey  had  passed  a  gradual  emancipation  act,  fol 
lowing  the  example  set  by  New  York  three  years  before 
and  by  Pennsylvania  at  an  earlier  date.  In  those  three 
States  slavery  was  in  process  of  extinction  under  a  settled 
policy.  The  institution  had  been  condemned  by  public 
opinion.  LnJL&O&r  after  several  years  of  exciting  debates, 
Congress  had  prohibited  the  importation  of  African  slaves 
and  declared  it  piracy,  and  the  year.,  before  it  had  refused 
to  consider  the  suspension  for  ten  years  of  the  free-soil 
clause  in  the  ordinance  of  1787,  for  the  purpose  of  legal 
izing  the  temporary  introduction  of  slaves  into  the  terri 
tory  northwest  of  the  Ohio.  The  subject  of  slavery  was 
the  frequent  topic  of  debate  in  the  college  literary  soci 
eties.  It  was  in  the  political  atmosphere  and  was  daily 
suggested  by  the  presence  of,  the  slaves  who  swept  the  cor 
ridors  of  the  dormitories.  Professor  MacLean  was  an  out- 


28  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

spoken  friend  of  abolition,  and  some  of  the  leaders  of  the 
free-soil  movement  in  the  State"  resided  at  Princeton. 
Many  of  the  students  were  from  the  Southern  States,  and 
it  may  be  supposed  that  the  slavery  discussions  were  spir 
ited.  What  part  was  taken  in  them  by  James  G.  Birney 
is  not  known.  That  he  did  not  defend  slavery  we  know 
by  his  repeated  statements  in  his  manhood  that  he  had 
never  done  so  ;  but  as  to  the  remedy  for  it,  his  judgment 
may  have  been  warped  and  his  generous  ardor  chilled  by 
the  plausible  fallacies  of  President  Smith. 

In  his  college  career  there  was  little  to  interest  the 
general  reader.  His  few  breaches  of  discipline  were  not 
serious,  and  he  was  in  good  standing  with  the  faculty. 
With  the  Rev.  Philip  Lindsley,  tutor  in  languages,  he  con 
tracted  a  friendship  which  continued  through  life.  Dr. 
Lindsley  became  afterward  president  of  the  University  of 
Tennessee,  at  Nashville,  and  was  my  father's  guest  on  sev 
eral  visits  to  Huntsville,  Alabama. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
BETWEEN  COLLEGE  AND   THE  BAR. 

1810-1814. 

RETURNING  to  Kentucky  immediately  after  taking  his 
diploma,  he  passed  a  few  days  at  home,  and  then  joined 
the  party  of  Mr.  Clay's  friends  who  were  escorting  him 
during  his  canvass  of  the  district  for  a  seat  in  Congress. 
On  this  excursion,  which  lasted  about  a  month,  he  became 
acquainted  with  many  of  the  men' who  were  prominent 
in  Kentucky  politics.  His  heart  was  quite  won  by  the 
tact  and  kindness  of  Mr.  Clay,  and  he  remained  for  many 
years  thereafter  an  admirer  and  friend  of  that  eminent 
orator  and  statesman.  He  had  expected  to  study  law  at 
Danville,  but  had  hardly  read  a  chapter  in  Blackstone 
before  his  father  made  the  necessary  arrangements  for  him 
to  become  a  student  in  the  office  of  Alexander  J.  Dallas, 
then  a  celebrated  lawyer  and  the  United  States  District 
Attorney  at  Philadelphia.  The  next  three  years  and  a 
half  were  spent  in  that  city,  except  the  time  taken  for  a 
tour  through  New  England,  two  visits  to  Washington 
city,  and  a  yearly  visit  home. 

Mr.  Dallas  was  an  able,  but  not  an  attentive  instructor, 
his  time  being  much  absorbed  by  his  professional  duties ; 
but  there  were  in  the  office  several  well-educated  and  zeal 
ous  fellow-students,  with  whom  legal  doctrines  and  cases 
were  discussed ;  and  Mr.  Dallas  was  ever  ready  to  answer 
questions  and  solve  difficulties.  Attendance  on  interest- 


30  JAMES  G.  JBIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ing  trials  and  hearings  was  required,  with  a  full  report  on 
the  points  involved.  The  office  library  was  large  and  the 
books  well  chosen.  Mr.  Birney  made  good  use  of  his 
opportunities,  and  was  admitted  to  the  Philadelphia  bar, 
passing  a  creditable  examination. 

The  social  advantages  he  enjoyed  during  his  long  resi 
dence  in  Philadelphia  were  very  great.  His  purse  was 
liberally  supplied  by  a  generous  father,  who  insisted  that 
he  should  live  in  all  respects  as  a  man  of  fashion.  His 
dress  was  costly,  and  he  drove  tandem  a  pair  of  blooded 
bays  sent  him  from  the  Woodlawn  pastures.  After  the 
fashion  of  the  day,  he  wore  high,  fair-topped,  tassel ed 
boots  when  he  drove.  He  had  no  vices  or  habits  of  dis 
sipation,  but  he  cultivated  esthetic  tastes,  and  was  accus 
tomed  to  making  liberal  expenditures  to  gratify  them. 
During  life  he  was  noted  for  his  rich  and  tasteful  garb, 
love  of  fine  furniture,  beautiful  table  services,  and  good 
horses.  He  frequented  the  society  of  people  of  culture, 
finding  them  both  among  the  Quakers  and  the  fashiona 
bles,  lie  made  numerous  acquaintances  among  men  emi 
nent  for  talent.  It  was  then  his  life-long  friendship  with 
Abraham  L.  Pennock,  the  Quaker  merchant,  was  formed, 
and  that  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Forten,  the 
colored  sail-maker.  For  this  excellent  man  he  conceived 
a  high  regard,  showing  it  by  calling  on  him  in  after  years 
whenever  he  visited  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Forten  was  intel 
ligent,  thoughtful,  and  full  of  sympathy  for  his  race,  and 
was  just  the  man  to  discuss  slavery  with  his  young  Ken 
tucky  friend.  We  have  no  proof  that  he  did  so,  or  that 
during  the  residence  of  James  Gr.  Birney  in  Pennsylvania 
his  attention  was  especially  attracted  to  the  institution  of 
slavery,  then  dying  out  in  that  State.  In  May,  1814,  he 
returned  to  Danville  and  began  the  practice  of  law. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
HIS  LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY. 

1814-1818. 

IlE  did  not  have  to  wait  long  for  business.  The  Dan 
ville  Bank  made  him  its  regular  attorney,  and  his  popular 
manners,  thorough  preparation,  carefulness  in  details,  dili 
gence,  and  energy  soon  secured  for  him  a  good  clientage. 
He  traveled  the  circuit,  which  included  several  counties, 
and  practiced  in  both  civil  and  criminal  cases,  gaining  a 
valuable  professional  experience.  The  condition  of  affairs 
in  the  State,  however,  prevented  his  court  practice  from 
being  lucrative.  The  war  had  unsettled  trade.  The  sus 
pension  of  the  exportation  of  products  by  the  Mississippi 
River  had  been  calamitous ;  money  was  scarce ;  the  Bank 
of  Kentucky  was  discredited,  and  its  paper  was  refused  in 
payment  of  debts.  "  Relief  laws,"  staying  executions  on 
judgments,  were  passed  in  aid  of  the  debtor  class ;  and 
they  were  in  force  from  January,  1816,  to  February,  1818. 
The  young  lawyer  derived  his  chief  income  from  the 
amicable  adjustment  of  claims- 

He  identified  himself  with  the  community  in  which 
he  lived.  Soon  after  his  return  to  Danville  he  was  made 
a  Freemason  in  the  local  lodge — Franklin,  ]STo.  28 — his 
father,  a  passed  master  of  that  order,  performing  the  cere 
monies  of  the  initiation.  At  the  fall  elections  in  1814  he 
was  elected  to  the  town  council,  and  as  a  member  of  that 
body  was  active  in  founding  the  Danville  Academy.  He 


32  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

mixed  freely  in  social  life,  attending  balls  and  parties  and 
renewing  the  acquaintanceships  of  his  youth. 

Among  the  girls  he  had  known  from  childhood  was 
Agatha,  the  fifth  daughter  of  William  McDowell,  United 
States  District  Judge,  and  niece  of  George  Madison,  Gov 
ernor  of  Kentucky,  and  of  Bishop  Madison,  of  Virginia. 
The  admiration  he  had  felt  for  the  pretty  and  vivacious 
school-girl  was  changed  into  love  for  the  accomplished, 
intelligent,  and  charming  woman.  His  wooing  was  suc 
cessful.  Kelatives  and  friends  were  all  pleased.  The 
groom's  father  quite  forgot  that  the  lady  belonged  to  a 
family  noted  for  its  stanch  Presbyterian  ism.  The  mar 
riage  took  place  on  the  1st  of  February,  1816.  It  proved 
to  be  a  happy  one  until  the  decease  of  the  wife  in  1838. 
The  husband  was  always  loving,  considerate,  and  respect 
ful  ;  and  the  wife  was  happy  in  her  husband,  her  children, 
and  her  home,  over  which  she  presided  with  the  love  of  a 
mother,  the  grace  of  a  tactful  hostess,  and  the  skill  of  a 
model  housewife.  She  clung  to  her  husband  with  un 
wavering  faith  through  his  varying  fortunes.  In  the  last 
years  of  her  life,  while  suffering  from  infirm  health,  she 
felt  keenly  the  alienation  of  her  kindred  and  former 
friends  from  her  husband.  The  plan  of  this  sketch  does 
not  permit  more  than  the  above  brief  mention  of  the  do 
mestic  life  of  its  subject. 

Among  his  wedding  gifts  were  several  household  slaves, 
presented  by  his  father  and  father-in-law.  His  acceptance 
of  them  is  logically  inconsistent  with  the  anti-slavery 
principles  and  opinions  attributed  to  him  in  the  previous 
chapters  of  this  narrative.  It  may  be  palliated,  however, 
by  the  fact  that  in  his  day  such  inconsistency  was  com 
mon.  Patrick  Henry  said  of  slave-holders  :  "  Every  think 
ing  honest  man  rejects  it  in  speculation,  but  how  few  in 
practice  from  conscientious  motives  !  Would  any  one  be 
lieve  that  I  am  master  of  slaves  of  my  own  purchase  ?  I 


HIS  LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  33 

am  drawn  along  by  the  general  inconvenience  of  living 
without  them.     I  will  not,  can  not,  justify  it." 

Washington  did  not  free  his  slaves  except  by  will ;  and 
the  Rev.  Stanhope  Smith,  logician,  had  persuaded  himself 
that,  though  slavery  was  wrong  in  principle,  it  was  right 
in  practice.  It  must  be  admitted  that  in  the  James  G. 
Birney  of  1816  there  was  no  outward  indication  of  the 
future  aggressive  abolitionist;  but  the  principles  were 
latent  in  him,  and  were  to  be  made  visible  in  the  fierce 
political  heats  of  the  future.  In  the  summer  and  autumn 
of  1815  he  took  an  active  part  in  the  political  campaign, 
making  stump  speeches  in  favor  of  Henry  Clay  for  Con 
gress,  and  of  George  Madison  for  Governor.  Both  of 
these  candidates  were  elected. 

In  August,  1816,  at  the  first  election  after  he  became 
twenty-four  years  of  age,  and  thus  eligible  under  the  Con 
stitution,  he  was  elected  member  of  the  Lower  House  of  V, 
the  General  Assembly  of  Kentucky,  virtually  without  op-  » 
position.  He  took  his  seat  on  the  second  day  of  the  fol 
lowing  December.  There  were  one  hundred  and  fifty-one 
statutes  passed  at  the  session,  and  in  shaping  them  he 
rendered  valuable  service.  Standing  committees  wrere  not 
then  known  in  the  legislative  practice  of  the  State,  but 
he  was  appointed  on  several  special  committees  to  which 
important  bills  were  referred,  and  repeatedly  on  privileges 
and  elections.  He  procured  the  enactment  of  a  law  to  in 
corporate  the  Danville  Academy  and  to  appropriate  the 
proceeds  of  certain  lands  for  its  endowment ;  and  of  an 
other  to  prohibit  the  circulation  of  private  notes  as  cur 
rency.  He  voted  for  Martin  D.  Hardin  and  John  Adair 
for  the  United  States  Senate ;  but  Mr.  Adair  was  defeated 
by  John  J.  Crittenden.  He  supported  a  joint  resolution 
"commemorating"  Jackson's  victory  at  New  Orleans; 
and  another  relating  to  the  free  navigation  of  the  river 
Mississippi,  protesting  against  the  seizure  by  the  Louisi- 


34:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ana  authorities  of  the  "  steamboat  Enterprise,"  under 
"  the  pretended  authority  of  a  law  enacted  by  the  Legis 
lature  of  the  late  Territory  of  New  Orleans,"  declaring 
that  Kentucky  will  maintain  inviolate,  by  all  legitimate 
means,  the  right  of  her  citizens  to  navigate  said  river  and 
its  tributary  streams,  and  requesting  the  co-operation  of 
Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Louisiana. 

It  was  at  this  session  he  gave  the  first  sign,  so  far  as 
v  known,  of  his  unwillingness  to  be  used  as  a  tool  by  the 
slave-holding  interest.  The  Senate  had  passed  without 
opposition  a  joint  resolution  requesting  the  acting  Gov 
ernor  to  open  a  correspondence  with  the  Governors  of 
Indiana  and  Ohio,  respectively,  with  a  view  to  procure  in 
each  of  those  States  the  enactment  of  laws  for  the  recap 
tion  and  delivery  of  fugitive  slaves.  In  demanding  this 
measure,  the  slave-holders  stood  upon  their  alleged  legal 
rights  as  embodied  in  the  United  States  fugitive  slave  act 
of  1793.  When  it  came  to  the  House  it  was  vigorously___^ 
opposed  by  James  G.  Birney,  and  defeated.  "  What !  "  he 
asked,  "  shall  the  State  of  Kentucky  do  what  no  gentle 
man  would — turn  slave-catcher?"  After  the  vote  the 
pro-slavery  men  rallied,  and,  under  the  able  leadership  of 
Judge  Rowan,  succeeded  in  passing  a  substitute,  which 
omitted  the  most  objectionable  language  and  softened  the 
tone  of  the  original  resolution.  Mr.  Birney  did  not  vote 
for  the  substitute.  About  twenty  years  later,  he  said  he  did 
not  believe  his  opposition  to  the  measure  would  have  cost 
him  a  single  vote  in  Mercer  County,  that  cotton  was  not 
king  in  1817,  and  he  was  not  aware  that  any  unfavorable 
comment  on  his  course  had  been  made  by  the  press.  In 
fact,  he  attached  no  special  importance  to  it  at  the  time. 

He  was  already  sighing  for  a  wider  sphere  for  his  am 
bition.  The  Kentucky  paths  to  high  political  place  were 
already  crowded  by  distinguished  and  able  aspirants.  Clay, 
Crittenden,  Adair,  Hardin,  and  others  of  the  generation 


HIS  LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY.  35 

before  him  would  be  his  competitors  for  many  years  to 
come,  with  fearful  odds  in  their  favor.  A  Mr.  Love,  a 
friend  and  fellow-member  of  the  Legislature,  was  intend 
ing  to  go  to  Alabama  after  the  adjournment  of  the  ses 
sion,  and  pressed  him  to  visit  that  Territory  with  him. 
He  did  so,  and  was  so  much  pleased  with  its  fertile  soil 
and  the  political  and  professional  prospects  open  to  him  in 
the  embryo  State,  that  he  decided  to  close  up  his  affairs  in 
Kentucky  and  make  his  future  home  in  Alabama.  His 
plan  was  to  practice  law  in  the  Huntsville  circuit,  and  re 
side  on  a  plantation  near  that  growing  town.  _At  that 
day,  in  the  far  South  every  lawyer  was  a  politician,  and, 
if  he  was  rich  enough,  a  planter.  Clement  C.  Clay,  Arthur 
F.  Hopkins,  and  Reuben  Chapman,  all  of  Huntsville,  fol 
lowed  the  three  occupations.  James  G.  Birney  bought  a 
plantation  in  Madison  County,  near  Triana  and  the  Ten 
nessee  River,  and  within  two  hours'  ride  of  Huntsville.  To 
this  place  he  removed  with  his  family  in  February,  1818. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

LA  W  YER—PL  A  NTER—P  0  LITICIA  N. 
1818-1823. 

1^"  1818  the  roads  between  Danville  and  Huntsville 

were  such  as  are  commonly  found  in  new  and  heavily 
wooded  countries.  Railroads  and  even  turnpikes  were 
then  unknown  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  Rough  pas 
sage-ways  were  chopped  through  the  forests  by  the  pioneers. 
The  small  trees  were  cut  away ;  stumps  and  large  trees 
were  left,  and  about  these  the  wagon-tracks  wound  in  the 
most  convenient  curves.  There  were  no  ditches,  no  grad 
ing  the  roads  on  higher  levels ;  the  drainage  was  as  Na 
ture  made  it.  The  favorite  tool  of  the  pioneers  was  the 
axe,  not  the  spade.  There  were  long  stretches  of  flat  lands, 
where  the  water  lay  a  foot  deep  several  months  in  the 
year.  These  were  made  passable  by  "  corduroy  causeways," 
constructed  of  small  logs,  cut  into  twelve-foot  lengths 
and  covered  with  small  branches,  the  leaves  still  on. 
Rude  bridges  of  heavy  timbers  were  thrown  over  narrow 
creeks  which  were  too  deep  to  be  forded.  The  broader 
streams  were  crossed  on  flat-boats,  pulled  over  by  means  of 
strong  ropes  which  were  stretched  from  one  bank  to  the 
other  and  fastened  at  each  end.  The  transportation  of 
goods  was  effected  in  covered  wagons,  each  drawn  by  four 
or  six  mules  or  horses.  For  mutual  aid  of  drivers  in  case 
of  miring,  these  wagons  were  driven  in  trains.  When  they 
met  each  other  on  a  causeway,  one  train  was  driven  as  close 


LAWYER— PLANTER— POLITICIAN.  £7 

as  practicable  to  the  left  side  of  the  road  and  halted, 
allowing  scant  room  for  the  other  to  pass.  When  the  driv 
ers  met  citizens  in  vehicles,  they  would  often  refuse  to 
give  room,  compelling  them  to  turn,  drive  back,  some 
times  for  miles,  and  leave  the  road  until  the  wagon  teams 
had  passed  by.  When  a  citizen  in  a  light  vehicle  caught 
up  on  a  causeway  with  a  wagon-train,  it  was  a  delicious 
practical  joke  for  the  wagoners  to  keep  him  from  pass 
ing  them.  The  roads  from  Kentucky  to  Alabama  were 
crowded  with  immigrants  in  February,  1818. 

James  G.  Birney  accomplished  safely  the  removal  of 
his  family  and  property,  and  at  once  threw  himself  with 
energy  into  his  new  duties.  The  plantation  was  in  good 
order,  and  most  of  the  fields  intended  for  crops  had  been 
plowed ;  but  there  were  many  cares  to  absorb  his  atten 
tion.  Plantation  duties  did  not  prevent  him  from  culti 
vating  social  relations  with  the  planters  of  the  county, 
the  lawyers  at  Huntsville,  and  the  leaders  in  State  poli- 
itics.  The  Territorial  Legislature  in  1818  was  a  small 
body.  The  Senate  consisted  of  a  single  member,  who 
united  in  himself  all  its  offices.  His  name  was  Titus, 
and  it  was  his  humor  to  go  purfctiliously  through  all  the 
forms  of  legislation,  discussing  bills  sent  up  from  the 
House,  putting  them  to  vote,  signing  them  as  Speaker, 
countersigning  them  as  clerk,  and  forwarding  them  with 
due  formality  to  the  Governor.  The  Legislature  met  at 
St.  Stephens,  a  town  on  the  Tombigbee  Eiver,  about  eighty 
miles  from  Mobile.  It  was  regarded  by  the  leading  men 
in  north  Alabama  as  important  that  the  Constitutional 
Convention  should  be  held  at  Huntsville,  and  this  place 
was  designated  in  the  "  Enabling  Act,"  passed  by  Congress 
in  March,  1819,  partly  through  the  intervention  of  James 
G.  Birney  with  John  J.  Crittenden,  LTnited  States  Senator, 
and  Henry  Clay,  then  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives.  In  Madison  County  two  tickets  were  elected — one 


38  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  members  of  the  Convention ;  the  other  of  members  of 
the  first  General  Assembly.  Clement  C.  Clay  headed  the 
first;  James  G.  Birney,  the  second.*  The  Convention  was 
in  session  from  the  5th  of  July  to  the  2d  of  August,  1819, 
during  which  time  James  G.  Birney  was  present  almost 
as  regularly  as  if  he  had  been  a  member.  That  he  was  a 
valuable  aid,  both  because  of  his  literary  training  (which 
was  uncommon  at  that  time  in  Alabama)  and  his  sound 
sense  and  knowledge  of  the  law,  is  certain.  His  liberality 
and  humanity,  too,  have  left  their  traces  in  the  sections  of 
the  Constitution  which  relate  to  slavery.  In  the  Missis 
sippi  Constitution  of  1817  the  model  had  been  the  one^ 
framed  for  Kentucky  in  1799 ;  but  the  sections  relating 
to  slavery  had  been  made  more  harsh.  The  Kentucky 
model,  empowered  the  Legislature  to  emancipate  slaves, 
with  or  without  consent  of  owners,  on  making  previous 
compensation,  and  secured  an  impartial  trial  by  petit 
jury  to  any  slave  charged  with  felony.  The  Mississippi 
copy  limited  the  legislative  power  of  emancipation  with 
out  consent  of  owners  to  cases  in  which  the  slaves  had 
rendered  distinguished  services  to  the  State,  in  which  cases 
full  compensation  was  t<f  be  made ;  and  it  secured  an  im 
partial  trial  by  petit  jury  to  slaves  in  capital  cases  only. 
On  the  first  point  the  Alabama  Constitution,  which,  in  most 
parts  was  copied  from  that  of  Mississippi,  rejected  the 
harsh  and  narrow  Mississippi  provision,  and  empowered 
the  Legislature  to  abolish  slavery  on  making  compensa 
tion  to  owners,  as  in  Kentucky ;  and  on  the  second  it  was 
more,  liberal  than  either  the  Kentucky  or  Mississippi  in 
strument,  as  it  secured  to  slaves  the  petit- jury  trial  in  all 
prosecutions  for  crimes  above  the  grade  of  petty  larceny. 
It  adopted  from  Kentucky  the  clause  so  ominous  of  future 
emancipation  :  "  So  long  as  any  person  of  the  same  age  or 
description  shall  be  continued  in  slavery  by  the  laws  of 

*  See  Pickett's  "  History  of  Alabama." 


LAWYER— PLANTER— POLITICIAN.  39 

this  State."  And  it  added  the  following  section  which,  it 
is  believed,  was  the  first  of  the  kind  ever  inserted  in  the 
constitution  of  a  slave  State  : 

SECTION  3.  Any  person  who  shall  maliciously  dismember  or  ! 
deprive  a  slave  of  life  shall  suffer  such  punishment  as  would 
be  inflicted  in  case  the  like  offense  had  been  committed  on  a 
free  white  person,  and  on  the  like  proof  ;  except  in  case  of  in 
surrection  of  said  slave. 

It  is  true  that  these  words  are  found  in  the  Georgia 
Constitution  of  1798 ;  but  they  are  rendered  nugatory  by 
the  addition  of  a  second  exception  :  "  And  unless  such  death 
should  happen  by  accident  in  giving  such  slave  moderate 
correction."  Such  deaths  were  not  uncommon  in  Georgia ; 
but,  as  no  master  was  ever  tried,  convicted,  and  hanged  for 
the  murder  of  his  slave,  all  the  deaths,  to  use  the  consti 
tutional  phrase,  must  have  "  happened  by  accident." 

It  may  be  well  to  note  here  that  the  General  Assembly 
of  Alabama  for  many  years  exercised  its  power  to  eman 
cipate  slaves.  The  statute  books  of  the  State  show  the 
number  freed  at  each  session  for  the  first  eleven  years  of 
its  existence  to  have  been  as  follows  : 

Session.  Slaves  freed. 

1819 16 

1820 4 

1821 13 

1822 21 

1823 11 

1824 18 

1825 6 

1826 12 

1827 10 

1828 37 

1829 55 

Total ~ 203 

or,  an  average  of  more  than  eighteen  for  each  year. 


40  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

In  October,  1819,  James  G.  Birney  took  his  seat  as  a 
representative  in  the  first  General  Assembly  of  Alabama, 
and  devoted  several  months  to  the  task  of  legislation.  Of 
the  large  number  of  organic  acts  passed  at  this  session,  we 
know  that  he  aided  in  the  preparation  of  the  elaborate 
"act  to  regulate  the  proceedings  in  courts  of  law  and 
equity  " ;  and  that  he  was  the  author  of  the  "  act  con 
cerning  the  trial  of  slaves,"  which  allowed  paid  counsel  to 
all  slaves  tried  by  jury,  and  which  excluded  from  the  jury 
.both  the  master  and  the  prosecuting  witness  and  the  rela 
tives  of  both.  This  law  made  effective  the  constitutional 
provision  on  the  subject ;  it  was  the  outcome  of  a  sentiment 
of  justice  and  humanity  toward  a  class  that  had  few  friends. 

At  this  session  circumstances  occurred  which  closed 
the  promising  political  career  of  James  G.  Birney. 

The  fall  races  took  place  in  November  on  the  Hunts- 
ville  course ;  and  under  the  pretext  of  attending  them 
with  several  fine  horses,  General  Andrew  Jackson  remained 
two  or  three  weeks  in  the  town,  becoming  meanwhile  inti 
mate  with  many  of  the  members  of  the  Assembly.  After 
his  victory  at  New  Orleans  he  had  been  generally  regarded 
at  the  Southwest  as  a  future  President.  In  November, 
1815,  Aaron  Burr  had  suggested  him  as  an  available  can 
didate  ;  and  in  1819  the  idea  had  assumed  a  certain  force 
in  politics.  In  January  and  February  of  that  year  Gen 
eral  Jackson  had  passed  several  weeks  at  Washington  ;  in 
February  he  had  accepted  public  receptions  at  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore  ;  and  in  March  his  journey 
from  Knoxville  to  Nashville,  on  his  return  home,  was  a 
continuous  and  magnificent  ovation,  military  and  civil. 
Though  he  denied  it  on  several  occasions,  the  presidential 
bee  was  already  buzzing  in  his  bonnet. 

In  Alabama  the  enthusiasm  for  Jackson  was  probably 
greater  than  in  any  other  State  of  the  Union  ;  he  had 
fought  battles  and  won  victories  on  its  soil,  he  had  protect- 


LAWYER-PLANTER-POLITICIAN,  41 

ed  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  the  State  from  massacre 
by  the  Indians,  and  he  was  the  hero  of  Xew  Orleans !  He 
was  almost  a  fellow-citizen,  too,  for  he  owned  a  farm  near 
Tuscumbia,  on  the  Alabama  bend  of  the  Tennessee  River. 
In  the  midst  of  the  festivities  incidental  to  Jackson's  visit, 
a  Colonel  Rose,  of  Autauga  County,  a  member  of  the  As 
sembly,  offered  for  adoption  a  joint  resolution  of  the  most 
complimentary  character  to  the  general,  and  indorsing  him 
as  a  nominee  for  the  presidency.  Mr.  Birney  had  no  per 
sonal  hostility  to  the  general.  For  a  resolution  of  com 
pliment  to  Jackson  as  a  military  chieftain  he  would  prob 
ably  have  voted — he  had  done  as  much  in  the  Kentucky 
Legislature — but  his  deepest  convictions  made  it  impos 
sible  for  him  to  pledge  himself  to  Jackson's  political  for 
tunes.  To  him  the  general  appeared  a  contemner  of  the 
law,  a  headstrong  and  violent  man,  who,  in  hanging  Ar- 
buthnot  and  shooting  Ambrister,  in  April,  1818,  had  dis 
regarded  evidence  and  crowned  the  long  series  of  brutal 
deeds  which  proved  his  unfitness  to  wield  power.  He  not 
only  voted  against  Colonel  Rose's  resolution,  but  gave  his 
reasons  in  a  calm  and  forcible  speech.  From  that  date 
his  election  to  political  office  in  Alabama  was  impossible, 
and  he  did  not  again  become  a  candidate.  In  the  August 
following,  and  at  several  annual  elections  thereafter,  there 
was  no  opposition  in  Madison  County  to  the  ticket  nomi 
nated  by  Jackson's  friends. 

During  the  years  1820,  1821,  and  1822,  Mr.  Birney  be 
came  embarrassed  in  his  financial  affairs.  Owing  to  his 
frequent  absences  from  home,  the  inexperience  of  his 
slaves  in  the  methods  of  cotton  culture,  and  his  repug 
nance  to  severities  in  plantation  management,  his  cotton 
crops  had  not  proved  profitable.  Cotton  culture  requires 
skilled  labor  unceasingly  applied  in  some  form  for  at  least 
eleven  months  in  the  year.  It  admits  of  no  awkwardness 
in  the  use  of  the  hoe,  no  negligence  in  keeping  the  weeds 


4:2  JAMES  G.  BIKNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

from  the  plants,  no  clumsiness  in  picking,  no  ignorance 
of  the  processes  of  ginning  and  baling.  Kentucky  farm 
hands  who  had  never  seen  a  cotton  field  could  not  at  once 
be  made  profitable  operatives  in  one. 

The  idea  of  buying  a  few  slaves  thoroughly  trained 
in  cotton  culture,  and  using  them  to  train  those  he  had 
brought  from  Kentucky  farms,  does  not  appear  to  have 
occurred  to  him  during  the  five  years  of  his  experience  as 
a  planter.  It  may  be  stated  here  that,  although  James  Gr. 
Birney  was  a  slave-holder  for  sixteen  years  in  Alabama,  he 
never  bought  a  slave  in  the  market.  Those  taken  with 
him  from  Kentucky  had  all  been  obtained  from  near  rela 
tives  of  himself  or  wife — most  of  them  by  gift.  Before 
1832  he  had  no  thought  of  interfering  with  slavery  fur 
ther  than  to  restrain  importation  of  slaves  into  the  State, 
to  make  public  slave-markets  illegal,  and  to  punish  mas 
ters  for  cruelties  inflicted.  These  measures  were  the 
natural  result  of  his  early  impressions,  patriotism,  train 
ing  for  public  life,  and  generosity  of  temperament ;  and 
in  none  of  them  did  he  go  beyond  what  was  approved  by 
the  leaders  of  public  sentiment  of  that  day  in  Alabama. 
This  is  proved  by  the  adoption  of  his  measures  by  the 
Constitutional  Convention  and  the  Legislature  of  the 
State.  In  1822  his  feelings  in  regard  to  buying  slaves  of 
a  professional  slave-trader  were  such  that  if  it  had  been 
proposed  to  him  he  would  have  answered,  "  Is  thy  servant 
a  dog,  that  he  should  do  this  thing  ?  " 

His  manner  of  living  at  this  time  was  not  economical. 
He  did  not  deny  himself  the  luxuries  to  which  he  had 
been  accustomed  from  his  youth.  A  carriage,  fine  driv 
ing  and  saddle  horses,  expensive  furniture,  and  a  lavish 
hospitality,  he  regarded  as  indispensable.  In  Kentucky 
he  had  fallen  into  the  fashion,  universal  in  those  days 
among  Southern  gentlemen,  of  playing  for  stakes  and  lay 
ing  wagers  on  horse-races. 


LAWYER— PLANTER— POLITICIAN.  43 

Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster  were  noted  examples 
of  devotion  to  the  gaming-table,  and  they  did  not  differ 
in  this  respect  from  other  public  men  of  their  day,  espe 
cially  of  the  South,  who  were  not  members  of  the  Church. 
This  fashion  is  still  prevalent  in  some  parts  of  the  South 
among  gentlemen.  That  it  is  not  yet  looked  on  in  Ar 
kansas  as  a  vice  may  be  inferred  from  the  testimony  re 
cently  volunteered  by  Attorney- General  Garland,  before  a 
congressional  committee,  that  he  had  always  "lost  at 
poker."  For  several  years  Mr.  Birney  had  been  so  for 
tunate  as  neither  to  lose  nor  to  win ;  but  a  man  of  his 
generous  disposition  could  not  escape  the  common  fate  of 
all  who  tempt  chance.  Several  heavy  losses  in  the  period 
now  under  review,  added  to  his  failures  as  a  planter,  com 
pelled  him  to  borrow  money  on  mortgage  security  given 
upon  his  plantation  and  slaves.  His  slaves  had  all  been 
reared  in  either  his  own  or  his  wife's  family  ;  and  it  would 
have  cut  him  to  the  heart  to  see  them  sold  separately  un 
der  the  hammer  to  such  masters  as  chance  might  provide. 
He  made  then  two  resolves :  One,  never  to  bet  again, 
which  was  sacredly  kept ;  the  other,  to  pay  off  the  mort 
gage  upon  his  property  by  the  more  active  practice  of  the 
law.  To  carry  out  the  latter,  he  determined  to  remove  to 
Huntsville,  leaving  in  charge  of  an  overseer  until  better 
times  his  plantation  and  slaves,  with  the  exception  of 
Michael,  Michael's  wife,  and  three  children,  whom  he 
would  take  with  him  as  house-servants. 

In  January,  1823,  he  had  taken  up  his  residence  at 
Huntsville. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

LIFE  AT  HUNTSV1LLE. 

1823-1826. 

MADISON  COUNTY,  Alabama,  bounded  on  the  north 
by  Tennessee  and  on  the  south  by  the  Tennessee  River,  is 
remarkable  for  the  depth  and  fertility  of  its  soil.  Its  cli 
mate  is  genial  and  healthful,  being  redeemed  from  the 
sultriness  and  blazing  heats  of  the  "  cotton  belt "  to  the 
southward,  by  heavily  wooded  spurs  from  the  mountain- 
ranges  of  the  Alleghanies.  Cheap  transportation  for 
heavy  products  to  New  Orleans  is  afforded  by  the  Tennes 
see  and  Mississippi  Rivers.  The  access  to  it  is  easy  from 
Tennessee,  Virginia,  and  North  Georgia.  Owing  to  these 
favoring  causes,  the  stream  of  immigrants,  chiefly  from  the 
last-mentioned  States,  began  to  set  into  it  as  early  in  the 
century  as  the  county  was  comparatively  safe  from  the 
murderous  incursions  of  the  Indians.  In  1822,  Madison 
was  the  most  thickly  populated  county  in  Alabama. 

Huntsville,  the  county-seat,  was  one  of  the  prettiest 
towns  in  the  Southern  country.  Within  two  or  three 
miles  to  the  south  and  east  a  mountainous  range,  dark 
with  cedars,  hickories,  walnuts,  oaks,  and  other  forest 
trees  of  large  growth,  ran  up  into  a  lofty  peak,  which  at 
tracted  visitors  by  its  picturesque  ruggedness  and  sandy 
sea-beaches,  shells,  and  other  signs  of  ancient  deluge ;  and 
at  its  northern  extremity,  flattened  into  a  broad  forest- 
covered  plateau,  which  ended  in  an  abrupt  precipice  sev- 


LIFE  AT  HUXTSVILLE.  45 

eral  hundred  feet  in  height.  This  plateau,  shady,  cool, 
and  commanding  a  view  of  the  distant  hills  of  Tennessee, 
was  the  summer  retreat  of  the  wealthy  citizens  of  Hunts- 
ville ;  it  was  called  Montesano.  The  site  chosen  for 
Huntsville  was  on  high  and  rolling  ground,  easily  drained. 
It  was  a  high  bluff,  from  the  base  of  which  burst  one  of 
the  wonderful  springs  of  the  world.  At  its  very  source, 
the  volume  of  water  was  enough  to  float  a  vessel  of  four 
feet  draught  in  a  channel  forty  feet  in  width ;  it  was 
transparent  as  crystal,  cool,  and  pure.  On  rolling  hills, 
falling  by  gentle  slopes  to  the  fertile  plains  of  the  neigh 
borhood,  the  town  was  laid  out.  The  streets  were  parallel 
and  cross ;  and  the  public  square,  for  the  court-house  and 
county  offices,  was  in  the  center.  The  sides  of  the  public 
square  were  built  up  in  stores  and  shops.  The  beauty  and 
healthfulness  of  Huntsville  had  attracted  a  number  of 
men  of  fortune  and  leisure.  General  Walker  lived  in  a 
house  resembling  the  Parthenon ;  it  looked  down  on  the 
town  from  a  height  on  the  east.  Ex-Governor  Bibb  and 
other  planters  occupied  costly  mansions.  In  January, 
1823,  the  population  exceeded  two  thousand  and  was  in 
creasing  rapidly. 

The  sudden  growth  and  many  advantages  of  north 
Alabama  had  attracted  to  Huntsville  a  large  number  of 
lawyers.  Among  them  were  John  McKinley,  afterward 
Eepresentative  in  Congress,  United  States  Senator,  and 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States ;  Clem 
ent  C.  Clay,  Sr.,  afterward  United  States  Senator ;  Arthur 
F.  Hopkins,  William  Kelly,  Harry  I.  Thornton,  James 
McClung,  Jeremiah  Clements,  and  Caswell  E.  Clifton,  all 
of  whom  became  distinguished  in  public  life.  The  bar 
was  both  brilliant  and  able.  It  gave  a  warm  welcome  to 
James  G.  Birney,  who  had  already  gained  a  high  standing 
as  a  lawyer  by  his  occasional  practice  on  the  circuit. 

McKinley,  a  Virginian,  who  had  practiced  law  at  Louis- 


46  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ville  and  known  Mr.  Birney  at  Frankfort,  and  the  genial 
Thornton,  a  Kentuckian,  started  a  movement  which  re 
sulted  in  the  almost  unanimous  election  of  Mr.  Birney  by 
the  two  Houses  of  the  Alabama  General  Assembly  as  so 
licitor  for  the  Fifth  Circuit.  This  embraced  five  of  the 
most  populous  counties  in  the  State.  The  solicitor  prose 
cuted  all  criminal  cases,  and  acted  as  attorney  or  counsel 
for  the  State  in  all  civil  cases  to  which  it  was  a  party. 
For  each  service  rendered  a  fee  was  paid  from  the  State 
treasury.  In  the  hands  of  an  energetic  lawyer  the  office 
was  lucrative.  It  led,  too,  to  practice  in  other  cases. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  Mr.  Birney  was  then 
known  throughout  the  State  as  an  Anti-  Jackson  man,  that 
every  member  of  the  Assembly  was  a  Jackson  Democrat, 
and  that  every  member  of  the  Hunts  ville  bar,  except  one, 
belonged  to  the  same  party,  the  compliment  of  Mr.  Bir- 
ney's  election  will  be  appreciated.  He  accepted  the  posi 
tion,  and  entered  at  once  upon  the  performance  of  its 
duties. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  his  residence  in  Hunts- 
ville  Mr.  Birney  concluded  not  to  continue  his  ownership 
of  a  plantation  which  he  had  learned  by  experience  he  could 
not  in  person  conduct  with  profit. 

As  to  employing  again  an  overseer,  he  would  not  do 
that,  for  during  the  year  of  his  absence  he  had  been  un 
able  to  prevent  the  exercise  of  brutalities  toward  the  slaves, 
the  overseer  insisting  that  he  could  not  manage  without 
using  the  lash.  The  complaints  of  these  poor  creatures 
when  he  visited  the  plantation  and  their  appeals  to  him 
affected  him  deeply.  Mentioning  his  difficulties  to  his 
friend  and  neighbor,  Mr.  William  Love,  the  Kentuckian 
who  had  served  with  him  in  the  Kentucky  Legislature  and 
migrated  with  him  to  Alabama,  that  gentleman  offered  to 
buy  from  him  all  the  slaves,  at  a  low  price,  to  be  paid  one 
fourth  in  cash  and  the  rest  in  installments  at  long  date. 


LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE.  47 

Mr.  Love  was  known  as  a  kind-hearted  man  and  humane 
master  who  did  his  own  management.  The  slaves  were 
satisfied  with  the  change,  and  rejoiced  that  they  were  not 
to  he  separated.  The  arrangement  was  carried  into  effect 
at  once,  the  mortgagee  accepting  part  in  cash  and  Mr. 
Love's  notes  in  satisfaction  of  the  balance.  A  subsequent 
sale  of  the  plantation  enabled  Mr.  Birney  to  satisfy  the 
claim  secured  upon  it,  and  left  him  free  from  debts  and  in 
easy  circumstances.  About  the  same  time  he  bought  a 
valuable  half-acre  corner  lot  in  Huntsville,  two  squares 
from  the  head  of  the  Big  Spring. 

In  1824  and  1825  Mr.  Birney  had  become  so  prosper 
ous  in  worldly  affairs  that  he  erected  a  large  brick  house 
as  a  family  residence.  With  successive  additions  and  im 
provements  it  became  one  of  the  handsomest  and  most 
convenient  dwellings  in  Huntsville.  It  was  on  the  corner 
of  two  streets.  A  broad,  paved  sidewalk,  bordered  with 
China  trees,  extended  along  the  street  sides  of  the  prop 
erty,  and  a  high  wall  sheltered  from  view  a  beautiful  gar 
den.  This  was  both  ornamental  and  useful,  and  was  kept 
in  excellent  order  under  the  supervision  of  the  master  and 
mistress,  both  of  whom  had  a  decided  taste  for  horti 
culture. 

It  was  his  custom  to  spend  about  half  an  hour  after 
tea  on  spring  and  summer  evenings  among  the  roses, 
vines,  and  vegetables,  giving  a  touch  here  and  there  with 
the  hoe  or  pruning-knife,  tying  up  vines,  and  trimming 
the  young  trees.  This  was  his  favorite  recreation,  though 
once  in  a  great  while  he  went  out  fishing  or  hunting. 

He  and  his  wife  were  both  fond  of  social  life.  Friendly 
relations  were  cultivated  with  the  best  families  in  the 
town  and  country.  Calls  were  returned,  and  dinners  and 
parties  given.  The  large  double  parlors  of  the  house  were 
frequently  filled  with  company.  Members  of  the  bar  from 
abroad  were  hospitably  entertained.  At  the  evening  par- 


48  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ties  there  were  often  music  and  dancing.  It  was  the  fashion 
in  those  days  for  very  nice  people,  even  clergymen,  to 
drink  in  moderation ;  at  dinner  parties  cut-glass  decanters 
glittered  on  the  sideboard,  and  wine-glasses  of  varied  hue 
and  thickness  were  placed  near  the  plate  of  each  guest. 
James  G.  Birney  followed  the  fashion  in  this  respect.  He 
no  longer  followed  it  in  having  card-tables.  These  were 
not  to  be  seen  in  his  house ;  and,  as  time  rolled  on,  his 
social  circle  gradually  assumed  a  more  grave  and  quiet 
tone. 

His  professional  practice  rapidly  increased.  He  had 
the  qualities  which  attract  clients.  He  was  always  in  con 
dition  for  business,  and  always  prepared  on  his  case.  He 
was  methodical.  Letters  received  were  promptly  an 
swered,  indorsed,  and  filed.  Papers  in  the  same  case  were 
kept  together  in  properly  marked  jackets ;  he  neither  lost 
nor  mislaid  them.  He  knew  how  to  use  files,  drawers,  and 
pigeon-holes,  and  could  lay  his  hand  without  hesitation 
on  any  paper  in  the  office.  His  memorandum-book  was 
kept  and  consulted  ;  he  forgot  nothing.  If  he  rejected 
business,  he  did  so  plainly ;  if  he  accepted  it,  he  attended 
to  it  and  thoroughly.  He  studied  each  case  until  he  had 
mastered  both  the  facts  and  the  law,  and  he  never,  proba 
bly,  continued  one  because  he  was  not  ready.  He  was 
courteous  to  other  attorneys  and  to  witnesses  ;  he  never 
browbeat,  but  his  cross-examinations  brought  out  the 
truth,  or  exposed  the  equivocations  or  perjury  of  the  wit 
ness.  He  excelled  in  the  statement  of  his  case  and  in 
arguments  addressed  to  the  court.  In  addressing  juries 
he  was  unaffected  and  simple,  rising  to  eloquence  in  none 
but  extraordinary  cases.  But  no  man  at  the  bar  won 
cases  more  surely.  This  was  partly  because  he  never  know 
ingly  took  an  unjust  one.  A  son  who  wished  to  sue  his 
father  for  a  board  bill  was  ordered  out  of  Mr.  Birney's 
office.  Men  went  to  him  with  good  cases,  or  with  those 


LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE.  49 

that  were  marked  with  strong  equities.  He  compromised 
often,  and  it  was  generally  understood  that  a  case  could 
be  settled  with  him  on  its  merits. 

Asa  public  prosecutor  he  was  fearless,  but  he  would  not 
knowingly  convict  an  innocent  man.  He  would  not  sacri 
fice  an  accused  party  to  professional  vanity.  He  neither 
overstated  nor  misrepresented  the  testimony.  He  repre 
sented  public  justice,  and  not  private  passions.  AVhen  the 
proof  was  clear  that  the  accused  was  guilty,  he  rarely  es 
caped,  for  juries  came  to  believe  that  James  G.  Birney 
would  not  ask  a  conviction  if  it  were  not  due. 

In  such  cases  his  eloquence  rose  to  the  occasion,  and 
he  was  a  match  for  the  best  counsel.  It  is  probable,  how 
ever,  that  his  remarkable  success  at  the  bar  was  chiefly 
due  to  his  well-established  reputation  for  moral  courage, 
integrity,  justness,  and  moderation  of  thought,  candor,  and 
perfect  truthfulness.  He  became  the  most  successful 
practitioner  in  North  Alabama,  with  the  largest  profes 
sional  income.  As  early  as  1825,  his  practice  had  become 
so  large  that  Arthur  F.  Hopkins,  an  able  lawyer  and  elo 
quent  speaker,  and  greatly  respected  in  the  State,  returned 
to  Huntsville  from  Autauga  County  to  accept  the  position 
of  his  junior  partner.  In  1826  he  resigned  the  office  of 
solicitor  for  the  purpose  of  devoting  his  attention  exclu 
sively  to  civil  business. 

In  a  book  published  long  after  Mr.  Birney's  death, 
Henry  S.  Foote,  ex-United  States  Senator,  who  visited 
Huntsville  in  1825,  testified  as  follows : 

The  famous  James  G.  Birney  was  also,  at  the  time  mentioned 
(1825),  a  member  of  the  Huntsville  Bar,  where  he  was  exceed 
ingly  loved  and  respected.  When  he  afterward  became  the  zeal 
ous  advocate  of  African  emancipation,  though  his  friends  in 
Alabama  could  not  approve  this  part  of  his  public  career,  he 
still  retained  much  of  their  respect  and  kindness,  and  his  integ 
rity  as  a  man  was  never  called  in  question  by  them  ;  nor  were 
4 


50  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

his  learning  and  eloquence  as  a  forensic  advocate.  Mr.  Birnev 
was  a  singularly  fluent  and  polished  speaker,  and  was  known  to 
have  given  much  more  attention  to  the  niceties  of  orthoepy  than 
was  then  customary  among  the  lawyers  of  this  newly  settled 
region.  (See  "Bench  and  Bar  of  the  Southwest,"  by  H.  S.  Foote, 
of  Mississippi.) 

His  practice  in  the  local  and  appellate  courts  of  Ala 
bama  and  Tennessee  continued  to  grow  until  the  date  in 
1831,  when  he  began  to  reduce  it,  with  a  view  of  remov 
ing  to  Illinois.  As  his  professional  career  is  of  minor  in 
terest  only  in  this  biography,  it  may  be  dismissed  with  the 
following  extract  from  pages  7  and  8  of  the  sketch  of  his 
life  by  the  Rev.  Beriah  Green,  and  a  fact  stated  by  a  towns 
man  : 

A  single  fact  from  the  history  of  Mr.  Birney's  professional 
career  in  Alabama,  illustrating  his  integrity,  courage,  magna 
nimity,  and  generosity,  may  be  as  acceptable  to  our  readers  as  it  is 
refreshing  to  us.  The  following  statement,  from  authority  on 
which  the  fullest  reliance  may  be  placed,  we  give  in  the  language, 
slightly  altered,  of  our  informant.  Jackson  County  lay  in  his 
circuit.  Three  years'  practice  there  as  solicitor  had  made  him 
acquainted  with  nearly  all  the  people  of  the  county.  Pie  was 
personally  popular,  though  as  prosecutor  he  had  acted  rigorously. 
The  making  of  counterfeit  coin  had  become  quite  a  business  in 
that  county,  after  he  had  resigned  his  office  as  solicitor.  One 
day  a  young  man  of  very  humble  and  rough  appearance  applied 
to  him  at  Huntsville,  where  his  office  was,  to  bring  a  suit  for 
him  against  some  of  the  most  respectable  men  in  the  county,  for 
having  lynched  him  on  suspicion  of  his  having  aided  his  father, 
who  was  a  notorious  coiner,  and  who  as  such  had  also  been 
lynched.  Between  eight  and  nine  hundred  of  the  people  of  the 
county,  embracing  most  of  the  influential  men,  had  associated 
together  as  a  lynch  club;  and  such  was  their  power,  that  they 
inflicted  punishments  openly — knowing  that  no  verdict  could  be 
had  against  them  in  Jackson  County,  where  they  would  be  sure 
to  get  some  of  their  own  friends  upon  the  jury,  if  they  failed  to 
intimidate  those  whom  they  had  injured.  It  was  hinted  to  him 


LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE.  51 

that  unless  his  cause  was  just  and  himself  free  from  the  stains 
of  a  bad  character,  it  must  be  far  from  desirable  to  engage  for 
him  in  a  struggle  with  such  an  influential  corps.  Satisfied  in  this 
respect,  Mr.  Birney  undertook  for  him,  and  issued  his  writs 
against  the  wealthiest  and  most  responsible  men  in  the  band,  all 
of  whom  were  personally  his  friends.  It  had  been  his  custom, 
in  order  to  avoid  traveling  on  Sunday  to  the  court-house,  as  was 
the  custom  of  his  brother  lawyers,  to  go  to  the  village  where  the 
court  was  held  the  Saturday  before.  He  had,  of  course,  to 
travel  alone.  It  was  given  out  that  he  durst  not  go  to  the  court 
house — that  he  would  be  lynched,  and  so  on.  He  proceeded, 
however,  as  if  nothing  unusual  had  happened.  "Within  a  few 
miles  of  the  village  he  met  a  man  who  was  very  anxious  that  he 
should  return  and  stay  with  him  till  Monday,  when  the  judge 
and  the  officers  of  the  court  would  be  in  the  village.  His  ex 
posure,  then,  would  be  less  fearful.  He  went  on,  however,  and 
put  up  at  the  tavern  where  he  usually  boarded.  On  the  Sabbath 
he  was  at  church,  and  on  Monday  went  about  his  business  as 
usual,  saluted  even  those  whom  he  had  sued,  quietly  and  in  full 
self-possession,  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  Each  wondered 
that  all  except  himself  did  not  insult  him.  But  they  were  confi 
dent  that  no  jury  could  be  found  in  that  county  from  which  he 
could  obtain  a  verdict.  This  he  understood  as  well  as  they.  He 
had,  therefore,  made  provision  through  which  the  cause  was  to 
be  tried  in  due  season  at  Huntsville,  the  place  of  his  residence. 
Be/ore  he  left,  however,  he  brought  the  defendants  to  terms  agreeable 
to  his  client;  pecuniary  remuneration  was  made  for  the  trespass, 
and  an  agreement  was  entered  into  by  them  never  more  to  molest 
him.  The  lynching  business  was  broken  up  for  that  time,  AKD  THE 

ASSOCIATION   DISSOLVED. 

Eev.  William  T.  Alten^  who  was  brought  up  at  Hunts 
ville,  mentions~tHe  following  fact  in  "  Slavery  as  it_is_^_ 
(1838) :  "  While  I  lived  in  Huntsville,  a  slave  was~killed" 
in  the  mountain  near  by.  The  circumstances  were  these : 
A  white  man,  James  Helton,  hunting  in  the  woods  came 
upon  a  black  man  and  commanded  him  to  stop.  The 
slave  kept  on  running ;  Helton  fired  his  rifle,  and  the 
negro  was  killed  "  (page  46). 


J 


52  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Mr.  Birney,  then  prosecuting  attorney,  drew  up  an  in 
dictment  and  procured  the  finding  of  a  true  bill  against 
Helton.  The  murderer  escaped  and  fled  the  State. 

In  the  newly  populated  State  of  Alabama,  as  in  the 
young  States  of  the  West  and  Southwest,  the  moral  and 
physical  courage  of  every  prominent  man  was  put  to  fre 
quent  severe  tests.  Until  communities  became  settled 
and  regular,  what  is  called  in  the  Far  West  "  sand  "  is  a 
prime  requisite  of  character.  On  many  occasions  of  dan 
ger  occuring  during  the  first  six  years  of  his  Alabama 
residence  he  met  every  requirement  in  this  respect.  So 
well  was  his  reputation  for  coolness  and  nerve  established 
that  the  inhabitants  of  Huntsville,  a  year  after  he  became 
a  resident  of  the  town,  elected  him  mayor  for  the  purpose 
of  securing  the  suppression  of  the  bloody  brawls  and  af 
frays  which  had  become  of  almost  daily  occurrence  in  the 
streets  and  public  square.  Stabbing  and  shooting  affairs 
were  making  the  name  of  Huntsville  a  by-word  in  the 
South  The  officers  of  the  law  were  helpless  and  discour 
aged.  The  new  mayor  reorganized  the  force,  headed  it 
when  necessary,  making  some  arrests  of  disorderly  persons 
with  his  own  hands,  and  succeeded  in  establishing  the 
supremacy  of  the  law.  He  served  two  years  as  mayor, 
refusing  the  salary  attached  to  the  office. 

James  G.  Birney  was  not  of  a  nature  to  allow  his  pro 
fessional  pursuits  to  engross  his  attention  to  the  injury  of 
the  interests  of  the  community  in  which  he  lived.  What 
concerned  the  public,  concerned  him.  From  the  time  he 
began  practice  in  Kentucky  as  a  lawyer,  he  had  shown 
the  liveliest  sympathy  with  educational  movements.  He 
had  aided  in  founding  and  endowing  the  Danville  Acad 
emy.  He  had  become  so  identified  with  this  kind  of 
public  service  that,  in  1819,  he  had  been  appointed  one 
of  the  trustees  of  Centre  College,  at  Danville,  the  new 
institution  which  was  expected  to  grow  into  the  leading 


LIFE  AT  HUXTSVILLE.  53 

university  of  the  West ;  and  each  year  afterward  he  timed 
his  visits  to  Kentucky  so  as  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the 
trustees.  Soon  after  his  removal  to  Alabama  he  had  been 
appointed  trustee  of  Greene  Academy,  a  classical  school  at 
Huntsville,  and  he  performed  the  duties  of  that  position 
through  the  entire  period  of  his  residence  in  the  State. 
In  1823,  one  of  his  first  acts  after  his  removal  to  town 
was  to  organize  the  Huntsville  Library  Company.  In 
December,  he  procured  a  charter  in  which  he  was  named 
corporator  with  Dr.  Thomas  Fearn,  Samuel  Hazard,  John 
Boardman,  Miles  S.  Watkins,  and  other  leading  citizens. 
He  joined  cordially  in  movements  for  the  improvement 
'of  the  city.  Among  these  were  throwing  a  strong  dam 
across  the  head  of  the  Big  Spring ;  creating  a  water- 
power  and  erecting  works  which  forced  the  water  through 
wooden  pipes  for  the  supply  of  each  building  with  pure 
water  for  drinking  and  all  domestic  purposes;  and  dig 
ging  a  canal  from  the  Big  Spring,  a  distance  of  eleven 
miles,  to  the  Tennessee  River,  for  the  transportation  of 
cotton  and  other  heavy  products. 

As  he  grew  older,  Mr.  Birney  lost  all  interest  in  frivoli 
ties,  and  was  gradually  becoming  disinclined  to  the  amuse 
ments  common  in  the  South.  His  relinquishment  of  play 
had  separated  him  from  many  former  companions.  He 
had  never  been  a  profane  man  or  joined  in  drinking- 
bouts.  His  views  of  life  were  becoming  more  serious, 
more  earnest.  In  1825  his  children  were  five  in  number. 
Under  the  responsibilities  of  domestic,  social,  and  profes 
sional  life,  he  had  grown  into  the  conservative  citizen  and 
exemplary  head  of  a  family.  His  wife  was  a  faithful 
member  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  for  three  years 
he  had  been  her  companion  at  the  Sunday  services.  The 
two  oldest  children  sat  in  the  pew  with  their  parents. 
They  attended  the  Sunday-school,  and  the  father  sometimes 
went  with  them.  Under  the  quiet  influence  of  the  mother, 


54  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

social  ties  had  been  formed  with  many  church-members-, 
also,  with  the  pastor,  Dr.  Allen,  who  was  an  able,  learned 
man,  and  a  gentleman  who  recommended  religion  in  his 
conduct.  From  his  youth  up,  James  Gr.  Birney  had  rev 
erenced  religion ;  he  had  never  been  a  skeptic,  and  he 
felt  a  profound  respect  for  the  Church  and  the  duties  of 
its  ministers.  His  deep  and  sincere  nature  and  love  of 
truth  predisposed  him  to  the  acceptance  of  religious  prin 
ciple  as  the  guide  of  his  life,  and  his  heart  had  been  won 
by  the  beauty  of  piety  as  exemplified  in  his  beloved  wife. 
If  she  had  been  an  Episcopalian,  he  might  have  been 
better  content ;  but  it  probably  never  occurred  to  him  to 
prefer  the  Church  of  his  fathers  to  hers.  His  nature  was 
too  broad  for  sectarianism.  For  two  or  three  years  his 
tendencies  to  a  religious  life  had  been  so  marked  that 
when,  in  the  spring  of  J826,  he  made  a  public  profession 
and  connected  himself  with  Dr.  Allen's  church  his  friends 
and  the  public  were  not  surprised. 

From  that  event  dates  his  new  and  better  life,  his  per 
formance  of  duty  as  he  saw  it,  his  increasingly  intelligent 
conscience.  From  that  time  he  began  that  slow  moral  and 
intellectual  growth  which,  in  a  few  years,  brought  him  to 
the  full  stature  of  a  philanthropist  and  statesman.  In 
future  chapters  will  be  traced  the  almost  imperceptible 
degrees  by  which  he  rose  from  measures  designed  to 
benefit  his  locality  to  those  for  the  good  of  his  State,  the 
South,  and,  finally,  the  country.  His  growth  was  organic, 
not  spasmodic.  In  all  he  did  he  was  clearly  the  product 
of  the  best  elements  of  Southern  society,  and  his  move 
ments  in  advance  were  on  the  prolongation  of  the  lines 
on  which  he  started. 


CHAPTER  X. 
LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE. 

1826,  1827. 

of  the  first  effects  of  his  conversion  to  the  doc 
trine  of  doing  as  you  would  be  done  by  was  the  revocation 
of  his  refusal,  made  in  1824,  to  act  as  attorney  or  legal 
protector  of  the  Cherokee  nation,  which  occupied  the 
northeastern  corner  of  the  State.  The  position  was  not 
desirable,  popular  prejudice  running  high  against  the 
Indians  and  manifesting  itself  in  frequent  depredations, 
outrages,  and  crimes  against  their  property  and  persons. 
To  protect  them  in  their  legal  rights  was  not  easy ;  and  it 
exposed  the  protector  to  the  hatred  of  ruffians.  Mr.  Bir- 
ney  had  refused  to  act  in  this  capacity,  but  the  reasons 
he  had  offered  did  not  satisfy  his  sense  of  duty,  and  he 
notified  the  chiefs  that  he  would  accept,  if  they  had  made 
no  other  arrangement.  They  closed  joyfully  with  his 
offer.  The  plan  of  this  volume  will  not  permit  me  to  re 
count  his  acts  in  behalf  of  this  harrassed  and  oppressed 
people  in  the  six  years  beginning  with  1826.  He  caused 
missionaries  to  be  sent  and  schools  to  be  established 
among  them;  he  encouraged  them  to  cultivate  farms, 
build  houses,  and  open  roads ;  he  aided  an  educated  In 
dian,  who  had  invented  an  alphabet  for  the  language,  to 
start  a  Cherokee  paper ;  he  defended  them  in  their  prop 
erty  rights,  and  brought  to  punishment  some  of  t}s£  au 
thors  of  the  outrages  upon  their  persons ;  he  counseled 


56  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

them  to  peace  and  good  behavior ;  and,  most  surprising 
of  all,  he  succeeded  in  introducing,  quietly  and  without 
opposition,  several  Indian  girls  as  pupils  into  the  Hunts- 
ville  Female  Seminary.  It  was  said  they  were  daughters 
of  chiefs.  They  attended  the  Presbyterian  Ohurch,  and 
were  reputed  to  be  wards  of  Mr.  Birney.  Two  of  them  I 
remember  as  beautiful.  The  Indians  visited  Huntsville 
from  time  to  time  for  the  sale  of  pelts,  nuts,  blow-guns, 
bows  and  arrows,  and  game,  and  they  never  failed  to  pass 
by  my  father's  house,  and  leave  for  him  some  token  of 
their  gratitude. 

Early  in  1826  he  began  to  take  an  interest  in  the 
American  Colonization  Society,  which  he  regarded  "  as  a 
scheme  of  benevolence  to  the  whole  colored  population, 
and  as  a  germ  of  effort  capable  of  expansion  adequate  to 
the  largest  necessities  in  the  extermination  of  slavery." 
(See  his  letter  on  colonization,  1834.)  He  aided  in  get 
ting  up  a  contribution  to  the  funds  of  the  society.  This 
is  the  first  indication  in  his  career  of  sympathy  with  the 
slave,  and  -a  consciousness  of  his  personal  duty  in  regard 
to  the  evil  of  slavery.  Every  year  thereafter  he  and  some 
of  his  neighbors  united  in  making  a  similar  contribution. 

In  December,  1826,  when  he  went  to  the  Capitol  of 
Alabama  to  attend  the  session  of  the  Supreme  Court,  he 
took  with  him  the  rough  draught  of  a  bill  "  to  prohibit 
the  importation  of  slaves  into  this  State  for  sale  or  hire." 
This  was  intended  to  give  effect  to  a  clause  in  the  Consti 
tution  of  1819,  which  gave  power  to  the  General  Assem 
bly  "to  prevent  slaves  from  being  brought  into  this'  State 
as  merchandise" — a  clause  which  had  remained  a  dead 
letter.  The  bill  was  passed,  with  little  opposition,  Janu 
ary  12,  1827.  The  prohibition  was  to  take  effect  on  the 
first  day  of  the  following  August.  The  penalty  was— 

To  forfeit  and  pay  the  sum  of  one  thousand  dollars  for  each 
negro  so  brought  in — one  half  thereof  to  the  person  suing  for  the 


LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE.  57 

same,  and  the  other  half  to  the  use  of  the  State.  .  .  .  And, 
moreover,  any  person  thus  offending  shall  be  subject  to  mdict- 
ment,  and,  on  conviction,  shall  be  liable  to  be  fined  in  a  sum  not 
exceeding  five  hundred  dollars  for  each  offense,  and  sLall  be  im 
prisoned  not  exceeding  three  months,  at  the  discretion  of  the 
jury  trying  said  offense.  (Alabama  Statutes,  1826-'27.) 

This  law  was  not  favored  by  some  of  the  large  planters, 
who  desired  unlimited  facilities  for  buying  field  hands ; 
but  it  pleased  those  who  desired  to  limit  the  introduction 
of  slaves  into  the  State,  and  those  who  despised  slave- 
traders.  That  this  last  class  was  numerous  at  the  South 
is  testified  to  by  Henry  Clay  in  his  compromise  speech  in 
January,  1850,  as  follows :  "  Sir,  it  is  a  great  mistake  at 
the  North,  if  they  suppose  that  gentlemen  living  in  the 
slave  States  look  upon  one  who  is  a  regular  trader  in  slaves 
with  any  particular  favor  or  kindness." 

In  February,  1827,  Mr.  Birney  revisited  Danville, 
Ky.,  and  spent  two  weeks  with  his  father  and  friends. 
He  attended  the  regular  meeting  of  his  Masonic  lodge 
— Franklin,  No.  28 — and  met  the  brethren  in  a  social 
reunion.  We  may  fairly  attribute  to  his  efforts  the  re 
markable  resolution  and  circular  adopted  by  that  lodge, 
and  seni  to  the  Masonic  lodges  in  Kentucky.  The  reso 
lution  was : 

FRANKLIN  LODGE,  No.  28, 
DANVILLE,  March  3,  1827. 

Whereas  the  commerce  in  slaves  carried  on  by  importation  to 
this  State  from  the  other  slave-holding  States  conflicts  with 
those  feelings  of  benevolence  and  philanthropy  which  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  Mason  to  cherish  and  inculcate,  and  is  also  in  di 
rect  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  State  in  which  we  live,  which 
every  worthy  Mason  is  bound  to  respect  and  obey ; 

Therefore,  Resolved,  as  the  opinion  of  this  lodge,  that  said 
commerce  is  inconsistent  with  the  principles. of  Free  and  Accept 
ed  Ancient  York  Masonry  and  ought  to  be  discountenanced  by 
every  member  of  the  fraternity. 


58  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

The  circular  was  temperate  and  forcible.  It  closed 
with  these  words : 

We  feel  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  craft  to  warn  its  members 
from,  and  to  mark  with  pointed  reprobation,  all  participation  in 
that  commerce  which,  under  the  influence  of  a  degraded  cupid 
ity,  imports  from  other  States  hundreds  of  slaves  every  year  to 
be  sold  as  merchandise  in  this  country,  in  violation  of  an  express 
law  of  the  land  and  the  best  feelings  of  our  nature,  and,  as  we 
believe,  against  the  permanent  interest  of  our  country. 

By  order,  respectfully  and  fraternally,  your  brother, 

D.  G.  COWAN,  Master. 

This  document  is  the  companion-piece  of  the  Alabama 
law  passed  in  the  preceding  January,  and  is  evidently 
from  the  same  hand.  It  was  first  published,  and  with 
praise,  in  the  "  Western  Luminary  "  (Lexington,  Ky.,)  and 
may  be  found  in  full  in  Lundy's  "  Genius,"  etc.  (Balti 
more,  Md.,),  of  November  24,  1827.  For  many  years 
James  G.  Birney  entertained  the  idea  of  getting  slavery 
into  a  manageable  condition  in  each  State  by  stopping  the 
interstate  slave  trade.  As  in  1827  the  slave  population 
was  less  than  one  hundred  thousand  in  Alabama  and 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  in  Kentucky,  the 
idea  was  not,  at  the  first  blush,  a  chimerical  one. 

It  was  during  this  February  visit  to  Kentucky  that  the 
first  alienation  of  any  of  James  G.  Birney's  relatives  or 
connections  from  him  took  place.  He  was  now  thirty- 
five  years  of  age,  and  had  enjoyed  their  love  and  friend 
ship  without  interruption  ;  but  in  one  or  more  of  his  con 
versations  on  slavery — perhaps  among  the  Masons — he 
had  commented  with  severity,  it  was  alleged,  on  the  con 
duct  of  a  cousin  by  marriage,  Ninian  Edwards,  then  Gov 
ernor  of  Illinois,  contrasting  him,  much  to  his  disadvan 
tage,  with  ex-Governor  Coles,  of  the  same  State.  Edwards 
was  born  in  Maryland,  but  moved  to  Kentucky  about 
1793,  before  he  was  of  age;  he  was  a  lawyer,  judge,  and 


LIFE  AT  HUXTSVILLE.  59 

finally  Chief  Justice  of  the  State,  when,  in  1809,  he  was 
appointed  Governor  of  the  new  Territory  of  Illinois.  In 
1792  he  had  been  a  zealous  advocate  of  a  free  constitution 
for  the  State  of  Kentucky ;  and  from  1809  to  1818,  the 
whole  term  of  his  service  as  Territorial  Governor,  he  had 
resisted  the  introduction  into  Illinois  of  slaves  as  property, 
and  recommended  a  free  constitution  for  the  future  State ; 
but  when  that  constitution  was  adopted  and  he  was  made 
United  States  Senator,  he  voted  for  the  admission  of  Mis 
souri  as  a  slave  State,  and  the  consequent  extension  of 
slavery — being  one  of  the  renegades  among  Senators  from 
the  Northern  States.  In  the  struggle  in  Illinois,  between 
1822  and  1824,  to  prevent  the  establishment  of  slavery  in 
that  State,  Senator  Edwards  had  stood  aloof,  not  appearing 
to  care  whether  freedom  or  slavery  should  triumph.  And 
when  a  majority  of  the  population,  being  immigrants  from 
slave  States,  had  voted  that  Illinois  should  remain  a  free 
State,  Edwards  had  maintained  silence  and  indifference. 

On  the  other  hand,  Edward  Coles,  a  Virginian,  heir  to 
several  hundred  slaves,  a  man  of  education  and  talent, 
who  had  been  for  six  years  private  secretary  to  Presi 
dent  Madison,  had  taken  his  slaves  from  Virginia,  where 
he  could  not  free  them,  to  Illinois,  given  them  deeds  of 
emancipation,  bought  lands  and  built  cabins  for  them, 
given  them  stock  and  farming-tools,  and  watched  over 
their  interests  until  the  freed  men  were  able  to  take  care 
of  themselves  without  aid.  In  each  deed  of  emancipation 
Mr.  Coles  had  said  : 

And  whereas  I  do  not  believe  that  man  can  have  a  right  of  prop 
erty  in  his  fellow -man,  .  .  .  I  do,  therefore,  .  .  .  restore  to  the 
said  .  .  .  that  inalienable  liberty  of  which  they  have  leen  deprived. 
(Deed  of  July  19,  1819.) 

From  that  time  Edward  Coles*  had  thrown  himself, 
*  See  E.  B.  Washburne's  "  Sketch  of  Governor  Coles,"  p.  202. 


60  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

with  all  his  weight,  into  the  work  of  defeating  the  schemes 
of  certain  Southern  politicians  to  make  Illinois  a  slave 
State,  and  in  August,  1824,  had  won  victory  at  the  polls.* 

Mr.  Birney  censured  Ninian  Edwards  as  a  renegade 
to  his  own  principles,  and  eulogized  Edward  Coles  as  a 
patriot  and  statesman.  His  remarks  gave  great  offense 
to  some  of  the  connections  common  to  him  and  Governor 
Edwards,  and  the  rupture  was  never  wholly  healed.  The 
incident  is  important  in  this  biography,  as,  in  the  absence 
of  contemporaneous  proofs,  it  shows  conclusively  that  his 
sympathies  had  been  with  the  free-soil  men  in  the  Mis 
souri  controversy. 

In  1827,  two  of  his  Democratic  friends  in  Madison 
County,  Eobert  Chambers  and  Jeremiah  Clemens,  both 
lawyers  and  planters  and  men  of  wealth,  died,  the  former 
leaving  him  co-guardian  of  an  only  son  and  executor  of 
his  estate,  and  the  latter  leaving  him  sole  executor  of  his 
estate  and  guardian  of  his  two  sons  and  daughter.  These 
sacred  trusts  were  faithfully  performed.  One  of  the  sons 
of  Mr.  Clemens,  Jeremiah,  was  elected  United  States  Sen 
ator  in  1849.  He  wrote  several  novels  of  some  merit. 
During  his  life  he  cherished  a  warm  regard  for  his  former 
guardian,  never  failing  to  call  on  him  when  in  the  same 
city.  He  did  what  he  could  to  keep  Alabama  and  Tennes 
see  from  going  out  of  the  Union,  but  finally  adhered  to 
the  Confederate  Government. 

In  1827  Mr.  Birney  joined,  with  his  usual  vigor,  in  the 
project  to  establish  in  Huntsville  a  free  school  on  the 
Lancastrian  plan,  then  in  great  vogue ;  but  protested 
against  raising  the  necessary  funds  by  lottery — a  plan  au 
thorized  by  the  Legislature  in  January,  1828. 

In  the  same  year  he  sold  his  handsome  residence  to  A. 
F.  Hopkins,  Esq.,  his  partner,  and  bought,  in  the  northeast 

*  See  Brown's  "  Early  Movements  in  Illinois  for  the  Legalization  of 
Slavery." 


LIFE  AT  HUNTSVILLE.  61 

part  of  the  city,  a  handsome  lot  of  more  than  two  acres  in 
area,  with  good  but  not  fine  buildings.  On  the  opposite 
side  of  the  street  he  bought  a  ten-acre  grass  lot.  Here 
his  taste  for  building,  beautifying,  and  gardening  had  full 
scope.  He  drained,  leveled,  graded,  planted  shade  trees, 
sowed  grass  seed,  built  additions,  laid  out  walks,  intro 
duced  new  varieties  of  grapes,  plums,  damsons,  figs,  pears, 
peaches,  melons,  etc.,  made  fences,  both  for  fancy  and 
utility,  painted  and  arranged,  until  the  place  was  as  beau 
tiful  and  attractive  as  good  soil,  a  genial  climate,  a  south 
ern  sun,  aesthetic  taste,  and  liberal  expenditure  of  money 
could  make  it.  In  the  broad,  smooth  walks  and  vine-cov 
ered  arbors  of  the  garden,  the  young  people  of  Hunts- 
ville  found  pleasant  promenades  in  the  long  evenings  of 
summer. 

At  a  later  period  he  bought  between  three  and  four 
hundred  acres  of  fertile  land  on  the  Flint  River,  about  ten 
miles  east  of  Huntsville.  It  was  a  romantic  spot,  on  the 
road  to  Bellefonte,  and  he  had  often  passed  it  on  his  way 
to  court.  A  sugar-loaf  mountain,  with  clear  springs  near 
its  base,  the  stream  from  which  rippled  across  the  road, 
and  rich  bottom-land  stretching  to  the  small  forest-shaded 
river  half  a  mile  away.  Intending  it  for  a  stock-farm,  he 
built  cabins  near  the  springs,  and  placed  on  it  a  manager 
and  a  few  hired  hands.  To  this  place  it  was  his  pleasure 
to  retire  when  he  needed  recuperation  from  professional 
work.  He  would  join  in  the  labor  of  clearing  up  the  new 
fields,  burning  brush  and  logs,  building  fences,  and  put 
ting  in  crops.  His  muscular  powrer  was  greater  than  that 
of  ordinary  men,  and  the  exercise  improved  his  health ; 
but  his  highest  gratification  in  farming  was  in  bringing 
order  and  beauty  out  of  chaos  and  ugliness.  He  was  an 
artist  in  making  homes. 

The  manager  of  this  farm  chafed  a  good  deal  under 
the  prohibition  of  the  use  of  the  lash  on  the  servants.  On 


62  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

one  occasion  he  sent  by  the  writer,  who  had  been  at  the 
farm  hunting  ducks  and  squirrels,  which  were  numerous, 
a  note  stating  that  Jack,  a  negro,  must  be  whipped.  My 
father  was  much  troubled  by  this  note,  but  sent  me  back 
to  tell  the  manager  that  if  Jack  would  not  behave  him 
self  he  should  send  him  at  once  to  his  master.  In  speak 
ing  with  me  about  the  matter,  he  said  :  "  It  is  hard  to  tell 
what  one's  duty  is  toward  these  poor  creatures ;  but  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  to  one  thing — I  will  not  allow  them  to 
be  treated  brutally." 


CHAPTER  XL 
THE  POLITICAL   CAMPAIGN. 

1828. 

FROM  the  date  of  his  anti-Jackson  speech  in  the 
Alabama  Legislature  of  1819,  Mr.  Birney  had  been  identi 
fied  with  the  national  party  that  favored  a  protective  tariff, 
internal  improvements,  and  a  liberal  construction  gener 
ally  of  the  Constitution.  His  high  reputation,  socially 
and  professionally,  gave  him  influence  and  prominence  in 
the  party  councils,  and  in  1828  he  was  nominated  as  one 
of  the  electors  on  the  Adams  and  Bush  ticket  for  Ala 
bama.  He  immediately  took  the  field,  and  spoke  during 
the  summer  and  autumn  at  numerous  political  meetings 
held  in  the  chief  towns  of  the  State,  eulogizing  the  Con 
servatism  of  Adams  and  attacking  the  politics  of  Jackson 
and  Calhoun  as  fatally  dangerous  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  Union. 

To  understand  his  course  and  motives,  the  reader  must 
comprehend  the  then  existing  condition  of  Southern  poli 
tics  and  sentiment  in  relation  to  slavery  and  its  extension. 
The  truth  on  this  subject  has  seldom,  if  at  all,  been  fairly 
and  fully  stated. 

The  friends  of  Crawford,  Jackson,  and  Calhoun  are 
unwilling  to  admit  inferences  unfavorable  to  them  in  the 
present  state  of  public  opinion ;  writers  with  pro-slavery 
sympathies  reject  the  idea  that  there  were  Union  men  and 


64:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

abolitionists  at  the  South ;  and  anti-slavery  authors,  espe 
cially  most  of  the  Massachusetts  ones,  concur  in  this  rejec 
tion,  their  bias  being  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the 
Northern  movement  against  slavery.  The  average  belief 
at  the  North,  owing  to  these  errors  of  superficial  or  biased 
writers,  is  that,  after  the  Missouri  struggle  of  1820-'21,  the 
nation  went  fast  asleep  on  the  slavery  question  ;  that  the 
subject  was  not  discussed  at  the  South  because  of  danger 
to  life,  or  at  the  North  because  of  apathy;  that  the 
Southern  politicians  who  had  achieved  the  admission  of 
Missouri  had  at  once  abandoned  their  schemes  to  extend 
the  area  of  slavery ;  in  short,  that,  for  a  decade  of  years, 
"  thick  darkness  "  and  ignorance  and  acquiescence  in 
wrong  enveloped  the  nation.  This  erroneous  belief,  which 
has  become  general,  has  amazing  vitality  and  persistency ; 
I  can  hardly  expect  to  shake  it,  but  I  must  do  so  or  fail 
to  make  intelligible  the  public  career  of  James  G.  Birney, 
which  began  to  move  on  well-defined  lines  in  his  anti- 
Jackson  campaign  in  1828.  The  reader  will  indulge  me, 
therefore,  in  a  statement  of  facts  that  reflects  light  on  the 
Southern  politics  and  sentiment  of  that  period. 

The  "  Solid  South  "  took  its  definite  form  for  the  first 
time  in  the  Missouri  struggle.  As  John  Quincy  Adams 
says  (diary,  March  3,  1820)  :  "  In  this  instance  the  slave 
States  have  clung  together  in  one  unbroken  phalanx,  and 
have  been  victorious  by  means  of  accomplices  and  deserters 
from  the  ranks  of  freedom." 

The  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave  State  was  but  a 
small  part  of  the  plan  of  the  slavery  extensionists,  of 
whom  Crawford  was  the  most  able  and  intriguing. 
Another  part  was  the  restoration  of  slavery  in  Illinois, 
Indiana,  and  Ohio.  John  Q.  Adams  (diary,  March  3, 
1820)  says  :  "  I  have  had  information  from  the  Governor 
of  the  State  of  Indiana  that  there  is  in  that  State  a  party 
countenanced  and  supported  by  Crawford,  whose  purpose 


THE   POLITICAL   CAMPAIGN.  65 

it  is  to  introduce  slavery  into  that  State ;  and  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  the  same  project  exists  in  Ohio  and 
Illinois."  This  project  had  been  on  foot  for  many  years 
in  the  three  States  above  named. 

The  close  of  the  Missouri  controversy  was  the  signal 
for  renewing  with  energy  the  struggle  to  establish  slavery 
in  Illinois.  A  large  majority  of  the  voters  in  the  State 
were  immigrants  from  the  South,  and  the  pro-slavery 
men  expected  an  easy  victory.  The  contest  awakened  a 
national  interest.  Money  was  contributed  freely  by 
Southern  slave-holders  to  one  party,  and  by  Philadelphia 
Quakers  to  the  other.  Pamphlets,  some  of  which  were 
written  in  other  States,  were  circulated  broadcast  and 
newspapers  were  established  to  discuss  slavery.  In  his 
interesting  "  Sketch  of  Governor  Coles,"  E.  B,  Washburne 
has  traced  this  battle  from  its  open  beginning  to  its  close. 
On  page  191,  he  says :  "  It  was  on  the  first  Monday  of 
August,  1824,  that  the  election  was  to  take  place.  The 
hand-to-hand  struggle  had  continued  eighteen  months,  and 
superhuman  exertions  had  been  made  on  both  sides.  Both 
parties  welcomed  the  arrival  of  the  moment  that  was  fi 
nally  to  end  a  struggle  that  had  evoked  so  much  feeling 
and  passion,  involved  so  much  labor,  and  absorbed  such 
intense  interest." 

The  friends  of  slavery  were  defeated  by  a  large  majority. 
The  vote  was  a  deliberate  verdict  against  the  institution 
by  men  who  knew  all  about  it.  Even  "  Egypt "  decided 
against  it.  This  disaster  greatly  perplexed  the  leaders  of 
the  political  South,  coming  as  it  did  in  the  midst  of  a 
campaign  for  the  presidency.  The  "  Southron  "  and  the 
"  Telescope,"  two  South  Carolina  papers  of  the  fire-eating 
class,  advised  the  immediate  calling  of  a  convention  of 
the  planting  States,  under  pretext  of  opposition  to  the 
moderate  tariff  law,  which  had  been  passed  on  the  pre 
ceding  16th  of  April.  But  the  wiser  heads  counseled 


66  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

delay  and  the  election  in  November  of  a  slave-holder  to 
the  presidency. 

The  unexpected  defeat  of  Jackson  and  election  of  John 
Quincy  Adams  by  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  caused  an 
immediate  change  in  slave-holding  tactics. 

Previous  to  that  event,  four  favorite  sons  of  the  South, 
Clay,  Calhoun,  Crawford,  and  Jackson,  had  disputed  for 
her  favor.  Clay  was  popular  among  Northern  manufact 
urers  and  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky ;  and,  to  capture 
Southern  support,  he  could  refer  to  his  early  champion 
ship  of  the  Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions  of  1798; 
to  his  advocacy,  in  1820,  of  setting  aside  the  Florida 
treaty  and  seizing  Texas  by  force  of  arms ;  and  to  his  suc 
cessful  efforts  to  effect  the  admission  of  Missouri  into  the 
Union  as  a  slave  State. 

Calhoun,  by  his  free-trade,  pro-slavery,  and  ultra 
State-rights  doctrines,  had  alienated  the  support  of  the 
North  for  the  presidency.  His  tendencies  were  generally 
believed  to  be  toward  separation  of  the  South  from  the 
North.  "With  professions  of  personal  preference  for  the 
Union,  he  generally  coupled  declarations  of  his  belief  that 
the  South  would  be  forced  out  of  the  Union  and  compelled 
to  form  an  alliance  with  Great  Britain  (Adams's  diary, 
February  24,  1820).  Any  refusal  to  let  the  South  have 
its  way  in  anything  was,  in  his  eyes,  an  application  of 
force  to  that  section.  All  his  subtly  conceived  but  illogi 
cal  theories  were  based  upon  the  right  of  each  State  to 
nullify  the  laws  of  the  nation ;  but,  with  diplomatic  cau 
tion,  he  expressed  the  hope  that  no  occasion  might  be 
presented  for  the  exercise  of  this  right.  He  was  earnestly 
in  favor  of  the  acquisition  of  Texas  and  the  extension  of 
slavery  westward,  and  is  generally  credited  with  being 
the  first  to  suggest  the  brilliant  scheme  afterward  incor 
porated  in  the  creed  of  the  "  Knights  of  the  Golden 
Circle  " — the  creation  of  a  slave-holding  empire,  includ- 


THE  POLITICAL  CAMPAIGN.  67 

ing  the  Southern  States,  Texas,  Mexico,  and  Central 
America. 

Crawford  had  been  for  a  long  time  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  had  great  capacity  for  intrigue.  He  was  a 
strict  constructionist,  and  could  rely  upon  the  support  of 
Virginia  and  Georgia,  and  of  Jeffersonian  Democrats 
generally.  His  devotion  to  slavery  extension  was  un 
doubted. 

Jackson  was  not  identified  writh  any  theory  of  politics ; 
he  was  a  man  of  the  people,  and  had  received  a  majority 
of  the  popular  vote  at  the  election  of  1824.  Besides,  he 
was  an  illustrious  general,  and  had  gained  the  most  brill 
iant  victory  in  the  annals  of  his  country.  While  his  de 
votion  to  the  extension  of  slavery  was  undoubted  and 
unquestionable,  he  was  opposed  to  nullification,  believing 
that  the  slave  States  should  remain  in  the  Union  and 
rule  it. 

Immediately  after  the  election  of  Adams  a  coalition 
appears  to  have  been  formed  by  the  Southern  friends  of 
Crawford,  Calhoun,  and  Jackson.  The  general,  as  the 
most  available  candidate,  was  to  be  made  President  in 
1828 ;  Calhoun  was  to  be  Vice- President ;  and  Crawford, 
who  was  in  ill-health,  was  to  be  suitably  provided  for  in 
case  of  success  of  the  coalition.  Adams  appears  to  have 
been  aware  of  this  scheme  soon  after  it  was  formed.  Janu 
ary  27, 1825,  he  enters  in  his  diary  that  Calhoun  said  "  his 
personal  wish  was  for  my  election.  This  contrasts  sin 
gularly  with  the  conduct  of  all  his  electioneering  parti 
sans."  And  February  llth,  of  the  same  year,  he  mentions 
Calhoun's  plan  "  to  bring  in  General  Jackson  as  the  next 
President." 

On  Clay's  confirmation  as  Secretary  of  State,  fourteen 
Senators,  most  of  them  Southern,  including  one  from  Vir 
ginia,  and  all  from  North  Carolina  and  Georgia,  voted  in 
the  negative,  which  votes,  Mr.  Adams  thought,  indicated 


68  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

"  the  rallying  of  the  Southern  interests  and  prejudices  to 
the  men  of  the  South." 

Another  indication  of  the  coalition  is  thus  noted  by 
Mr.  Adams  :  "  Thomas  H.  Benton,  who,  from  being  a  furi 
ous  personal  and  political  enemy  of  General  Jackson,  be 
came,  about  the  time  of  the  recommendation,  a  furious 
partisan  in  his  favor  "  (diary,  March  5th). 

It  was  in  the  same  year  (1825)  that  Mr.  Calhoun  said 
to  Nathan  Sargent  that  it  (the  Adams  administration) 
"  must  be  defeated  at  all  hazards,  regardless  of  its  meas 
ures."  (See  Van  Hoist's  "  Life  of  Calhoun."  page  65.) 

From  the  election  of  Adams  to  that  of  his  successor,  in 
1828,  all  means  were  employed  "to  fire  the  Southern 
heart."  Public  meetings  were  held  in  every  part  of  the 
Carolinas  and  the  Gulf  States,  and  inflammatory  harangues 
were  made,  until  the  South  was  ablaze  with  excitement. 
The  tariff  of  1824  was  the  pretext  until  the  passage  of  the 
Tariff  Act  of  April,  1828 ;  and  this  was  denounced  as  an 
aggravation  of  the  evils  of  the  first.  It  was  assumed  by 
the  free-trade  orators  that  manufacturing  industries  were 
impossible  at  the  South,  which  could  be  only  agricultural ; 
that  Europe  was  the  only  market  for  cotton ;  and  that  the 
tariff  was  a  Northern  measure,  calculated  to  impose  upon 
the  cotton-planters  the  whole  burden  of  the  expenditures 
of  the  National  Government.  The  citizens  of  Columbia 
and  Richland,  in  a  memorial  to  the  South  Carolina  Legis 
lature,  said,  "  The  Northern  and  Middle  States  are  to  be 
enriched  by  the  plunder  of  the  South." 

In  an  address  to  the  people  of  South  Carolina,  the  citi 
zens  of  Colleton  District  said  of  the  tariff :  "  It  lifts  them  " 
(the  North  and  West)  "  to  prosperity,  while  it  sinks  us  into 
ruin.  We  have  done  by  words  all  that  words  can  do.  To 
talk  more  must  be  a  dastard's  refuge." 

They  advised  "  an  attitude  of  open  resistance  to  the 
laws  of  the  Union." 


THE   POLITICAL  CAMPAIGN.  69 

It  was  recommended  in  a  South  Carolina  paper  that 
the  Southern  States  should  prohibit  the  introduction  into 
them  from  the  Northern  States  of  horses,  mules,  hogs, 
beef,  cattle,  bacon,  bagging,  and  other  products;  and 
should  impose  a  municipal  tax,  large  enough  to  be  pro 
hibitory,  on  all  goods,  wares,  and  merchandise,  the  produce 
of  those  States. 

A  Georgia  paper  addressed  to  the  North  the  words  of 
Abraham  to  Lot :  "  Separate  thyself,  I  pray  thee,  from 
me,"  etc. 

A  congress  was  suggested  to  devise  means  of  protec 
tion  "  from  the  operation  of  the  tariff  bill,  and  prevent 
the  introduction  and  use  of  the  tariffed  articles  in  their 
respective  States."  (See  Young's ."  American  Statesman.") 

At  a  meeting  in  Columbia,  S.  C.,  in  1827,  Dr.  Thomas 
Cooper,  president  of  the  State  college,  made  a  speech 
which  contained  the  following  passages :  "  A  drilled  and 
managed  majority  has  determined  at  all  hazards  to  sup 
port  the  claims  of  the  Northern  manufacturers  and  to 
offer  up  the  planting  interest  on  the  altar  of  monopoly." 
Protection — "  a  system  by  which  the  earnings  of  the  South 
are  to  be  transferred  to  the  North.  .  .  .  We  of  the  South 
hold  our  plantations  under  this  system  as  the  serfs  and 
operatives  of  the  North."  "  Is  it  worth  our  while  to  con 
tinue  this  union  of  States,  where  the  North  demands  to 
be  our  masters  and  we  are  required  to  be  their  tribu 
taries  ?  " 

At  a  grand  tariff  banquet  in  Richmond,  Ya.,  in  1827, 
William  B.  Giles,  a  free-trade  leader,  proposed  and  the 
guests  drank  a  toast  "  to  the  Tariff  Schemer !  The  South 
will  not  long  pay  tribute."  (See  Logan's  "  Great  Con 
spiracy.") 

January  15,  1828,  the  Legislature  of  Alabama  passed 
"  A  joint  remonstrance  to  the  Congress  of  the  L^nited 
States  against  the  power  assumed  to  protect  certain 


70  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

brandies  of  industry,"  and  denounced  the  proposed  wool 
en  bill  "  as  a  species  of  aggression  little  less  than  legal 
ized  pillage  on  her  property,  to  which  she  can  never  sub 
mit  until  the  constitutional  means  of  resistance  shall  be 
exhausted." 

The  enactment  in  April,  1828,  of  another  tariff,  en 
abled  the  political  leaders  at  the  South  to  heap  fresh  fuel 
on  the  fire.  Soon  after  this  a  public  meeting,  held  at 
Walterborough,  S.  C.,  issued  an  address  calling  upon  the 
people  "  to  resist,"  repeating  in  different  paragraphs  "  We 
must  resist,"  and  ending  with  :  "  Does  timidity  ask  when? 
We  answer,  now  !  " 

About  the  same  time  the  anonymous  nullification 
pamphlet  of  fifty-six  pages,  known  in  political  history  as 
"  The  South  Carolina  Exposition,"  was  printed.  Before 
the  end  of  summer  it  was  in  the  hands  of  all  the  promi 
nent  pro-slavery  politicians  of  the  South.  It  was  a  man 
ual  of  the  arguments  for  nullification,  presented  with  all 
the  ability  of  its  author,  John  C.  Calhoun ;  and  its  influ 
ence  in  shaping  pro-slavery  policy  was  very  great.  This 
candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency,  on  the  Jackson  ticket, 
was  actively  and  secretly  engaged  in  undermining  the 
Union ! 

The  outcry  against  the  tariff  had  its  minor-key  accom 
paniment  in  charges  against  President  Adams  of  hostility 
to  the  South.  He  was  not  a  slave-holder,  refused  to  em 
ploy  slaves  at  the  White  House,  had  appointed  abolition 
ists  to  office,  had  recommended  sending  delegates  to  the 
Panama  Congress,  and  was  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of 
Texas  and  to  the  extension  of  slavery. 

Henry  Clay  did  what  he  could  to  allay  apprehensions 
of  danger  from  Adams,  and  to  dissuade  the  political  South 
from  forming  a  pro-slavery  party.  In  his  speech  at  Lew- 
isburg,  Va.,  August  30,  1826  (see  page  380,  volume  of  his 
speeches,  published  in  1827),  he  said : 


THE   POLITICAL  CAMPAIGN.  71 

There  are  persons  who  would  impress  on  the  Southern  States 
the  belief  that  they  have  just  cause  of  apprehending  danger  to  a 
certain  portion  of  their  property  from  the  present  Administra 
tion.  It  is  not  difficult  to  comprehend  the  object  and  the  motive 
of  these  idle  alarms.  Suppose  an  object  of  these  alarmists  were 
accomplished,  and  the  slave-holding  States  were  united  in  the 
sentiment  that  the  policy  of  this  Government,  in  all  time  to 
come,  should  be  regulated  on  the  basis  of  the  fact  of  slavery, 
would  not  union  on  the  one  side  lead  to  union  on  the  other.  The 
slave-holding  States  can  not  forget  that  they  are  now  in  a  mi 
nority,  which  is  in  a  constant  relative  diminution,  and  should 
certainly  not  be  the  first  to  put  forth  a  principle  of  action  l>y  which 
they  would  be  the  greatest  losers. 

There  were  not  wanting  eminent  and  able  men  at  the 
South  who  advocated  the  tariff.  Among  these  were  James 
Madison,  of  Virginia.  His  two  tariff  letters  to  Joseph  C. 
Cabell,  printed  in  1828,  still  hold  an  honorable  place  in 
political  literature.  James  G.  Birney  went  further — he 
not  only  advocated  the  tariff,  but  took  issue  with  the 
South  Carolina  nullifiers  and  the  slavery  extensionists. 
In  numerous  speeches  delivered  in  different  parts  of  the 
State,  he  exposed  the  sophistries  of  the  resolutions  of 
1798,  pointed  out  the  dangers  of  attempting  to  control 
national  politics  in  the  interest  of  a  single  pecuniary  inter 
est,  and  warned  the  slave-holders  not  to  invite  a  national 
discussion  of  slavery  by  attempting  to  extend  it  over  new 
States  in  Texas,  thus  destroying  the  balance  of  power  be 
tween  the  K"orth  and  the  South.  He  appealed  to  them 
not  to  repeat  the  agitations  of  the  Missouri  controversy ; 
not  to  awaken  the  sleeping  lion ;  and  he  developed  and 
illustrated  the  suggestions  made  by  Henry  Clay  in  his 
Lewisburg  speech,  in  1826. 

If  the  reader  believes  in  the  prevalent  error,  that,  in 
the  decade  ending  with  1830,  any  and  every  discussion 
at  the  South  of  slavery  or  its  extension,  was  promptly 
punished  with  death  at  the  hands  of  a  mob,  he  will  be 


72  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  II1S  TIMES. 

incredulous  in  regard  to  the  character  of  Mr.  Birney's 
speeches  in  1828.  To  remove  skepticism  on  this  subject, 
I  propose  to  devote  the  twelfth  chapter  to  stating  a  few 
of  the  many  facts  tending  to  prove  that  freedom  of  speech 
was  not  unknown  at  the  South  during  and  before  the 
period  in  question.  It  is  believed  that  careful  historical 
research  will  establish  the  truth  of  the  following  proposi 
tions  in  regard  to  the  mobbing  of  abolitionists  in  the 
South : 

1.  In  the  border  slave  States,  with  the  exception  of 
Missouri,  during  the  agitations  of  1820-'21,  it  had  been 
almost  unknown  before  the  election  of  General  Jackson 
to  the  presidency ;  and  in  the  Gulf  States,  it  was  local, 
occasional,  and  rare  before  that  event. 

2.  After   the   election   of  Jackson   the   toleration    of 
slavery  discussion  was  rapidly  narrowed  in  its  limits ;  and 
the  prejudice  against  Yankees  led  to  an  increase  in  the 
number  of  cases  of  mob  violence. 

3.  The  horrible  slave  insurrection  of  August,  1831,  at 
Southampton,  Va.,  caused  a  panic  that  resulted  in  mobs 
and  the  expulsion  from  the  South  of  a  number  of  persons 
suspected  of  tampering  with  the  slaves,  and  in  the  gen 
eral  strengthening  of  "  the  patrol  system,"  organized  un 
der  law  to  keep  the  slaves  in  subjection. 

4.  The  defeat  of  the  milliners,  in  the  winter  of  1832-'33, 
turned  all  their  activities  into  the  agitation  of  slavery,  for 
the  purpose  of  creating  a  sectional  feeling  as  a  basis  for  a 
future  separation  of  the  States.     Hostility  to  Northerners 
was   fomented,  and  vigilance    committees  were   formed, 
the  chief  duty  of  which  was  "  to  hang  abolitionists  "  on 
short  shrift.    In  this  work  the  Jackson  and  Clay  men  vied 
with  the  milliners;  and  before  the  end  of  1835  the  South 
was  terrorized  into  silence,  and  thoroughly  organized  to 
support  the  claims  of  the  slave  power. 

That  this  was  the  view  taken  by  Thomas  H.  Benton 


THE  POLITICAL  CAMPAIGN.  73 

may  be  inferred  from  the  following  passage  from  the  sec- 
oncLYolume  of  his  "  Thirty  Years  in  the  Senate  " : 

Mr.  Callioun,  when  he  went  home  from  Congress  in  the  spring 
of  that  year  (1833),  told  his  friends  that  "The  South  could  never 
be  united  against  the  North  on  the  tariff  question — that  the  sugar 
interests  of  Louisiana  would  keep  her  out,  and  that  the  basis  of 
the  Southern  union  must  be  shifted  to  the  slave  question."  Then 
all  the  papers  in  his  interest,  and  especially  the  one  at  Washing 
ton,  published  by  Mr.  Duff  Green,  dropped  tariff  agitation  and 
commenced  upon  slavery,  and  in  two  years  had  the  agitation  ripe 
for  inauguration  upon  the  slavery  question. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

ABOLITION  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE  1828. 

THERE  were  many  portions  of  the  South  which  were 
not  under  the  control  of  any  one  of  the  three  schools  of 
slavery  extensionists.  In  East  Tennessee,  before  1828,  the 
stream  of  anti-slavery  opinion  was  full  and  strong.  It 
was  formed  of  two  confluents — the  Presbyterian  and  the 
Quaker — both  from  North  Carolina. 

The  most  prominent  Presbyterian  abolitionist  in  that 
region  between  1800  and  1830  was  the  Rev.  Samuel  Doak, 
D.  D.  He  was  born  and  brought  up  in  Virginia.  His 
parents  being  unable  to  bear  the  expense  of  giving  him  a 
liberal  education,  he  built  for  himself  a  cabin  near  the 
college  at  Lexington,  Va.,  supported  himself  as  a  stu 
dent  by  working  and  teaching,  graduated  with  honor, 
went  to  Princeton,  and  took  his  theological  degree  in 
1775 ;  taught  as  tutor  in  Hampden  Sydney  College  for 
two  years;  was  licensed  as  preacher,  and  migrated  in  1777 
to  the  Holston  Valley,  in  Tennessee.  He  fought  the  In 
dians,  taking  his  rifle  and  leading  his  congregation ;  was 
member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  held  in  1784; 
established  an  academy  which  grew  into  Washington  Col 
lege,  and  was  president  of  it  from  1795  to  1818.  He  then 
resigned  in  favor  of  his  son,  the  Rev.  John  M.  Doak,  D.  D., 
and  established  the  "  Tusculum  Academy "  at  Bethel, 
Tenn.,  which  also  developed  into  a  college,  in  the  presi 
dency  of  which  he  was  succeeded  by  another  son,  the 


ABOLITION  IX  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE  1828.         75 

Kev.  Samuel  "W.  Doak,  D.  D.  During  his  whole  career  he 
taught  theology  and  prepared  a  large  number  of  students 
for  the  ministry.  He  died  in  1830.  (See  Sprague's  "An 
nals,"  page  303.) 

He  was  a  large  and  strong  man,  healthy,  and  both  able 
and  willing  to  do  a  great  amount  of  work.  His  striking 
characteristics  were  manly  good  sense,  calm  dignity,  in 
domitable  firmness,  and  powerful  intellect ;  and  his  moral 
influence  over  those  brought  in  contact  with  him,  espe 
cially  the  young,  was  very  great.  He  was  commonly 
called  the  Presbyterian  bishop.  Though  he  had  been  for 
many  years  opposed  to  slavery,  he  did  not  take  the  step  of 
emancipating  his  own  slaves  until  about  1818.  Eleven  of 
his  freedmen  removed  to  Brown  County,  Ohio,  and  their 
descendants  are  there  at  present.  From  about  that  time 
he  inculcated  upon  all  his  students,  theological  and  liter 
ary,  the  principles  of  immediate  abolition.  It  was  prob 
ably  due  to  his  teachings  that  the  noted  Sam  Houston, 
one  of  his  pupils,  gave  his  vote  many  years  later  against 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  vetoed  the  Texas  ordinance 
of  secession ;  and  that  his  step-son,  Robert  McEwen,  kept 
the  national  flag  flying  over  his  house  at  Nashville  during 
the  whole  course  of  the  rebellion.  It  was  through  his  in 
fluence  chiefly  that  the  Presbyterians  of  his  own  and  the 
neighboring  county  bought  two  promising  young  men  of 
color,  John  Gloucester  and  George  Erskine,  freed  and 
educated  them  for  the  ministry  of  their  Church,  and  that 
the  Union  Presbytery  of  East  Tennessee  licensed  and  or 
dained  them.  They  were  eloquent  preachers.  Gloucester 
became  pastor  of  a  colored  congregation  in  Philadelphia, 
and  Erskine  had  charge  for  a  time  of  a  white  congrega 
tion.  (See  A.  T.  Rankin's  "  Truth  Vindicated,"  page  5.) 

The  presbytery  just  named  was  formed  in  part  of  min 
isters  whose  ethics  had  been  fashioned  in  their  youth  by 
the  strong  hands  of  the  venerable  Dr.  Doak,  and  it  was 


76  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

always  distinguished  by  liberality  on  the  slavery  question. 
Some  of  his  graduates  were  members  of  the  Abingdon 
Presbytery.  The  famous  abolitionist  Rev.  John  Rankin 
was  his  pupil  for  three  years  (1813-1816).  The  Rev.  Jesse 
Lockhart,  who  from  about  1820  preached  immediate 
abolition,  and  lectured  on  it  in  southern  Ohio,  was  taught 
by  him. 

For  half  a  century  Dr.  Doak  was  recognized  as  the 
principal  column  on  which  rested  the  Presbyterian  Church 
of  East  Tennessee,  and  as  his  influence  was  always  thrown 
against  slavery,  public  opinion  was  liberal  on  that  subject. 

It  was  principally  under  Quaker  influence  that  the 
Manumission  Society  of  Tennessee  was  formed  in  1814. 
Membership  was  not  limited,  however,  to  that  sect. 
Charles  Osborn,  Quaker,  sat  in  it  side  by  side  with  John 
Rankin  and  Jesse  Lockhart,  Presbyterians.  The  State 
legislation  urged  for  compulsory  emancipation  was  that  a 
day  should  be  fixed,  on  and  after  which  every  child  born 
in  the  State  should  be  free.  Most  of  the  members  be 
lieved  in  preparing  the  slaves  for  liberty ;  some,  among 
whom  were  Charles  Osborn,  John  Rankin,  and  Jesse 
Lockhart,  believed  in  immediate  abolition.  This  society 
held  annual  conventions  and  issued  annual  addresses  _tct 
the  people  with  great  regularity;  and  several  times  before 
1829  was  represented  in  the  American  Convention  to  pro 
mote  the  Abolition  of  Slavery.  The  minutes  of  its  eleventh 
annual  convention,  held  August  15,  1825  (see  Lundy's 
"  Genius  "  for  September  of  that  year),  show  an  attendance 
of  delegates  from  twelve  auxiliary  societies  with  a  mem 
bership  of  five  hundred  and  seventy  persons,  three  of 
which  societies  were  county  organizations,  and  that  ten 
auxiliaries  were  not  represented.  It  was  resolved  by  that 
body  to  establish  at  Greenville  a  quarterly  paper  to  be  en 
titled  "  The  Manumission  Journal." 

In  1820,  at  Jonesborough,  Tenn.,  Elihu   Embree,  a 


ABOLITION  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE   1828.         77 

Friend,  had  established  an  octavo  monthly  paper  called 
"  The  Emancipator,"  probably  the  first  newspaper  in  the 
United  States  whose  avowed  object  was  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  Mr.  Embree  was  a  manufacturer  on  a  large 
scale,  belonged  to  a  numerous  family,  and  was  a  man  of 
influence  in  his  county.  He  died  a  few  months  after 
starting  his  journal,  and  Benjamin  Lundy,  of  Mount 
Pleasant,  Ohio,  who  had  already  published  at  that  place 
eight  numbers  of  the  "  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipa 
tion,"  removed  to  Tennessee  and  continued  its  publica 
tion,  first  at  Jonesborough  and  afterward  at  Greenville,  in 
the  adjoining  county,  until  October,  1824,  when  it  was 
issued  at  Baltimore.  (Appendix  B.) 

A  Greene  County,  Tenn.,  correspondent  of  the  "  Gen 
ius"  (Xo.  9,  October  16,  1829)  announces  the  re-elec 
tion  in  that  county  of  John  Magaughy  to  the  Assembly, 
and  adds :  "  Mr.  Magaughy  did  more  in  the  last  Assembly 
on  the  subject  of  slavery,  in  behalf  of  the  Manumission  So 
ciety,  than  any  one  ever  did  at  any  previous  session." 

The  fertile  flat  breadths  of  land  in  West  Tennessee 
were  favorable  to  large  plantations  and  working  numerous 
gangs  of  slaves ;  but  the  American  sentiment  of  inalien 
able  and  equal  rights  found  advocates  there  also.  In  De 
cember,  1824,  a  number  of  persons  convened  at  Columbia, 
Maury  County,  and  formed  "  The  Moral,  Religious  Manu 
mission  Society  of  West  Tennessee."  The  preamble  to 
the  constitution*  declares  that  slavery  "  exceeds  any  other 
crime  in  magnitude " ;  that  instrument  declares  it  "  the 
greatest  act  of  practical  infidelity,"  and  that  "  the  Gospel 
of  Christ,  if  believed,  would  remove  personal  slavery  at 
once  by  destroying  the  will  in  the  tyrant  to  enslave,"  and 
prescribes  as  follows : 

AKT.  8.  None  that  own  or  hold  slaves  can  be  admitted  as 
members  of  this  society. 

*  Published  in  full  in  the  "  Genius  "  of  February,  1825. 


78  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

That  the  movement  in  Tennessee  was  not  an  isolated 
one  will  be  demonstrated  by  a  few  facts  taken  almost  at 
random  from  those  occurring  in  other  slave  States.* 

The  Manumission  Society  of  North  Carolina  was_ 
formed  ^n~T8 16.  Ten  years  later,  the  number  of  its 
auxiliaries  was  forty-five,  and .  its  cause  was  advocated  by 
the  "  Patriot,"  a  newspaper  edited  with  marked  ability. 
The  most  active  men  in  the  membership  were  probably 
the  Mendenhalls,  the  Coffins,  and  the  Swains — William 
and  Moses.  There  were  several  auxiliary  societies  of  la 
dies  not  counted  in  the  number  above  given. 

In  the  proceedings  of  this  State  Society,  there  is  one 
document  which  establishes  conclusively  the  existence  in 
North  Carolina  of  many  "immediate  abolitionists"  in 
1825.  It  is  printed  at  length  in  the  number  of  the  "  Gen 
ius  "  for  September,  1825.  The  heading  is  as  follows : 
"  Queries  proposed  by  the  Board  of  Managers  of  the  Manu 
mission  Society  of  North  Carolina,  to  be  answered  sepa 
rately  by  the  branches,  and  forwarded  to  the  next  meeting 
of  the  General  Association." 

This  "  next  meeting  "  was  held  September  9,  1825.  It 
is  presumed  the  answers  were  all  in.  A  committee  was 
appointed  to  collate  them  and  "  prepare  general  answers." 
The  fifth  query  was  in  these  words : 

5th.  Is  a  majority  of  the  citizens  of  North  Carolina  opposed 
to  slavery  ? 

The  general  answer  to  this  was  as  follows : 

5th.  We  suppose  the  popular  sentiment  of  North  Carolina 
may  be  estimated  according  to  the  following  view,  viz.,  one  tkir-    \ 
tieth  of  the  people  are  crying  out  for  immediate  emancipation  among    •. 
us;  one  twentieth  are  for  gradual  emancipation  ;  one  fifteenth 
are  supporting  schemes  of  emigration  and  colonization  ;   three 

*  The  "Abolition  Intelligencer"  was  published  in  1822  and  1823  by 
the  Rev.  John  Fiuley  Crowe,  D.D.,  of  Shelbyvillc,  Kentucky. 


ABOLITION  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE   1828.         79 

fifths  are  ready  to  support  emancipation  by  paying  their  money 
and  otherwise,  provided  masters  would  cheerfully  give  up  their 
slaves  and  Government  would  undertake  the  work  on  a  plan  that 
would  operate  with  justice,  and  insure  the  safety  of  all  parties  ; 
one  twentieth  have  never  thought  of  the  subject,  and  neither 
know  nor  care  anything  about  it  ;  three  twentieths  are  moder 
ately  opposed  to  emancipation,  merely  because  they  think  it  im 
practicable  ;  and  one  twentieth  are  bitterly  opposed  to  it  in  al 
most  every  shape,  not  because  they  expect  to  sustain  a  material 
loss  in  property  by  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  but  because  they 
are  ignorant  enough  to  think  that  heaping  senseless  execrations 
on  manumission  societies,  etc.,  is  an  excellent  way  of  flattering 
the  rich  or  avaricious.  According  to  this  view,  it  appears  that 
three  fifths  of  the  people,  or  sixty  in  every  hundred,  are  favor 
ably  disposed  toward  the  principle  of  emancipation,  but  are  sit 
ting  at  ease,  waiting  for  some  exciting  cause  to  shake  off  the  pre 
vailing  apathy  and  give  impulse  to  that  course  of  policy  which 
they  know  already  is  just  and  expedient.  We  believe  about 
three  twentieths,  or  fifteen  in  every  hundred,  are  at  this  time 
active  supporters  of  universal  emancipation  in  some  way  or 
other. 

This  is  the  whole  answer  to  the  query.  In  its  estimate 
of  the  proportion  of  "  immediate  abolitionists  "  it  must  be 
taken  to  be  impartial ;  for  in  the  answer  to  the  sixth  query 
the  opinion  of  the  society  as  to  the  best  means  of  abolish 
ing  slavery  is  in  effect  formulated  thus :  1.  Non-impor 
tation  of  slaves  into  the  State ;  2.  Prohibition  of  all  sales 
of  slaves ;  3.  Freedom  of  all  born  after  a  fixed  date ;  and  4. 
Emigration  and  colonization  of  the  blacks.  The  queries 
and  answers  were  signed  by  Richard  Mendenhall,  Presi 
dent,  and  Aaron  Coffin,  Secretary,  and  were  forwarded 
by  order  of  the  society  to  Benjamin  Lundy  for  publi 
cation. 

As  the  above  is  the  only  deliberate  census  of  Southern 
opinions  on  slavery,  taken  in  forty-five  different  localities 
in  a  State,  made  and  published  before  1828,  and  as  it  was 
sanctioned  by  intelligent  and  conscientious  men,  citizens 


80  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

and  knowing  the  facts,  it  may  be  safely  taken  as  a  sure 
guide  to  public  sentiment  at  its  date,  not  only  in  North 
Carolina,  but  in  Tennessee  and  Virginia.  The  proportion 
of  abolitionists,  immediate  and  gradual,  in  Maryland  and 
Kentucky  was,  for  obvious  reasons,  much  larger.  With 
the  mention  of  the  single  fact  that  in  the  years  1834, 1825, 
and  1826,  about  two  thousand  slaves  were  freed  in  North 
Carolina,  and  726  in  one  body  were  removed  from  the 
State  as  required  by  law,  by  the  Society  of  Friends,  we 
will  pass  to  the  State  of  Maryland. 

At  the  time  (October,  1824)  Benjamin  Lundy  began 
the  publication,  at  Baltimore,  of  the  fourth  volume  of  his 
paper,*  it  was  generally  expected  that  Maryland  would 
soon  take  her  place  among  the  free  States.  Only  four 
years  had  elapsed  since  the  people  of  the  city  of  Balti 
more,  at  a  public  meeting,  the  mayor,  Edward  Johnson, 
presiding,  had  denounced  the  admission  of  Missouri  into 
the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  and  two  thousand  of  her  citi 
zens  had  signed  a  petition  to  Congress  to  the  same  effect ; 
and  only  eight  months  since  Elisha  Tyson,  the  philanthro 
pist  and  emancipator,  had  fallen  at  the  ripe  age  of  seventy- 
five,  after  a  life  whose  deeds  of  heroism  entitle  him  to  rank 
among  the  great  souls  of  our  race.  He  was  born  of  a 
family  of  Philadelphia  Quakers,  but  removed  to  Harford 
County,  and  afterward  to  Baltimore,  in  early  manhood. 
When  he  witnessed  the  sufferings  of  the  enslaved  and  per 
secuted  Africans,  his  soul  was  seized  with  a  mighty  love 
and  pity  for  those  wretched  people,  and  he  consecrated  the 
best  energies  of  his  life  to  their  service.  If  any  one  was 
illegally  held  in  slavery,  he  hunted  up  the  proofs  and  ap 
pealed  to  the  courts.  To  this  class  belonged  all  those 
brought  into  the  State.  Some  were  freedmen  who  had 
lost  their  papers ;  others  were  descended  from  Indians  or 
other  free  persons;  some  had  mothers  who  were  freed- 

*"  Life  of  Tyson,"  p.  103. 


ABOLITION  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE  1828.         81 

women.  He  was  indefatigable  in  bringing  these  cases 
before  the  judge  of  the  county  court,  who,  to  his  honor 
be  it  said,  enforced  the  law.  From  his  biography,  pub 
lished  by  Lundy  in  1825,  and  written  by  John  S.  Tyson, 
his  nephew,  I  extract  the  following  passage  : 

The  labors  of  JIjL. Tyson  were  not  confined  to  a  single  dis 
trict,  they  extended  over  the  whole  of  Maryland.  There  is  not 
a  county  in  it  which  has  not  felt  his  influence,  or  a  court  of  jus 
tice  whose  records  do  not  bear  proud  testimonials  of  his  triumphs 
over  tyranny.  Throwing  out  of  calculation  the  many  liberations 
indirectly  resulting  from  his  efforts,  we  speak  more  than  barely 
within  bounds  when  we  say  that  he  has  been  the  means,  under 
Providence,  of  rescuing  at  least  two  thousand  human  beings  from 
this  galling  yoke  of  a  slavery  which,  but  for  him,  would  have 
been  perpetual. 

He  exerted  himself  to  put  down  the  traders  in  slaves 
and  turned  the  business  into  disgrace.  His  biographer 
says  : 

The  traffic  in  human  flesh,  once  so  common,  and  carried  on  by 
persons  looked  upon  as  respectable,  came  to  be  of  very  limited 
extent,  and  conducted  by  the  lowest  and  basest  of  mankind. 
Dungeons  for  the  reception  of  slaves  about  to  be  exported 
dwindled  down  to  two  or  three.  .  .  .  All  this  happy  revolution 
wras  the  work  of  one  man  .  .  .  (p.  12). 

He  procured  the  passage  of  several  laws  ameliorating 
the  condition  of  the  slaves  and  facilitating  emancipation, 
persuaded  many  masters  to  give  deeds  of  manumission, 
and  aided  in  the  erection  of  churches  and  schools  for  the 
freedmen. 

Mr.  Tyson's  whole  life  proves  that  he  regarded  slavery 
as  a  sin,  to  be  repented  of  and  abandoned  instantly  by  the 
slave-holder.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  when  there  was 
question  of  general  abolition  by  compulsory  statutes,  he 
thought  it  wiser  to  follow  the  example  of  the  States  which 


82  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

had  become  free.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that,  in  1824, 
New  York  was  still  a  slave  State,  and  there  were  slaves 
held  in  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  Illinois.  / 

Another  efficient  anti-slavery  worker  in  Maryland  was~f~ 
Daniel  Raymond,  a  lawyer  of  high  standing  and  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Baltimore  bar.  Of  liberal  education,  he  had 
devoted  much  time  to  the  study  of  political  economy.  In 
1820  he  published  the  first,  and  in  1823  the  second  edition 
of  an  elaborate  work  on  that  subject  in  two  octavo  vol 
umes  containing  eight  hundred  and  fifty-six  pages.  All 
the  implications  of  the  work  are  against  systems  of  forced 
labor,  and  he  devotes  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  the  second 
volume  to  the  discussion  of  "  The  Influence  of  Slavery 
on  National  Wealth."  A  few  extracts  will  show  its  char 
acter  : 

The  mass  of  human  suffering  which  has  been  already  caused 
by  negro  slavery.  .  .  .  The  most  ardent  philanthropists  and  the 
most  splendid  talents  have,  during  the  last  thirty  years,  been 
employed  in  portraying  the  horrors  of  slavery.  .  .  .  The  man 
who  should  now  justify  the  slave-trade  would  be  looked  upon 
as  a  monster  of  human  depravity.  ...  It  behooves  a  Christian 
people  to  use  all  diligence  in  purifying  itself  from  this  abomina 
tion.  .  .  .  The  current  of  popular  opinion  is  against  slavery.  .  .  . 
Slavery,  a  hackneyed,  worn-out  subject.  ...  A  very  little  reflec 
tion,  however,  will  satisfy  any  man  that  the  scheme  [colonization] 
is  utterly  hopeless,  so  far  as  it  proposes  to  rid  our  country  of  the 
black  population  or  abolish  slavery.  ...  If  the  Gordian  knot  of 
slavery  is  not  untied  within  a  century  from  this  day  it  will  be 
cut.  .  .  .  They  are  here,  and  have  as  much  right  to  remain  here 
as  the  whites.  .  .  .  There  are  people  enough  who  would  set 
their  slaves  free  provided  the  law  allowed  it. 

Comparing  slavery  to  a  noose  about  the  neck  of  the 
slave  States,  he  says  : 

The  only  way  of  getting  out  of  the  noose  is  by  forcing  the 
slave-owners  to  let  go  their  hold  upon  the  slaves  and  set  them 
free.  .  .  .  Diffusion  [through  new  slave  States]  is  about  as  effect- 


ABOLITION  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE   1828.         83 

ual  a  remedy  for  slavery  as  it  would  be  for  the  small-pox  or  the 
plague.  .  .  .  By  procrastinating  the  day  of  manumission  we  in 
crease  the  difficulty  of  manumitting.  .  .  .  All  that  is  required 
is  a  general  permission  in  all  the  States  for  masters  to  manumit 
their  slaves  whenever  they  see  fit.  Such  a  law  would  promote 
manumission  fast  enough  for  the  present  ...  no  great  and  sud 
den  changes  would  be  produced  in  society. 

Mr.  Kaymond  had  been  a  colaborer  with  Elisha  Tyson, 
and  he  gave  a  cordial  welcome  to  Benjamin  Lundy.  On 
the  formation  of  the  Maryland  Anti-Slavery  Society,  Au 
gust  25,  1825,  he  was  elected  its  president.  He  was  three 
times  the  candidate  nominated  by  that  society  on  the 
abolition  platform  for  the  House  of  Delegates  of  Mary 
land.  In  1825  he  received  six  hundred  and  twenty-four 
votes.  In  1826  he  was  again  brought  forward.  On  the 
2d  of  September  the  officers  of  the  State  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety  published  an  address  "  to  the  independent  voters  of 
the  city  of  Baltimore  (see  "  Genius  "  of  that  date)  recom 
mending  Daniel  Eaymond  for  their  suffrages.  It  is  four 
columns  in  length.  The  gist  of  it  is  in  the  following 
extracts : 

A  period  must  be  fixed  by  law  for  the  termination  of  slavery. 
.  .  .  Nothing  will  be  adequately  effectual  [against  kidnapping] 
but  the  total  abolition  of  slavery,  nothing  but  the  annihilation  of 
the  market  for  slaves. 

The  following  is  valuable  historically  : 

In  our  sister  State  of  North  Carolina  the  advocates  of  general 
emancipation  are  increasing  with  a  rapidity  unparalleled  in  the 
annals  of  this  nation.  It  is  believed  that  nearly  three  thousand 
citizens  of  that  State  have  enrolled  themselves  as  members  of 
anti-slavery  societies  within  a  period  of  two  years.  .  .  . 

The  Anti -Slavery  Society  of  Maryland  consists  at  this  time  of 
four  respectable  branches  with  several  hundred  members,  although 
thirteen  months  have  not  yet  elapsed  since  the  first  proposition 
was  made  for  its  organization. 


JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 


In  the  States  of  Virginia  and  Delaware,  societies  for  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery  have  also  recently  been  formed,  and  many  in 
fluential  individuals  therein  are  actively  engaged  in  promoting 
the  doctrines  of  universal  emancipation.* 


There  were  nine  candidates, 
lows : 


The  result  was  as  fol- 


J.  S.  Tyson 3,898 

J.  Strieker 2,507 

G.  H.  Steuart 2,420 

R.  Purviance. . 1,319 

C.  C.  Harper 1,011 


D.  Raymond 974 

C.  R.  Richardson 616 

C.  S.  Walsh 528 

M.  A.  Dysart 39 


The  two  gentlemen  elected  were  on  the  National  Re 
publican  or  Adams  ticket.  The  next  two  were  Jackson 
Democrats. 

Among  other  comments  the  "  Genius  "  says  : 

Walsh,  the  most  violent  antagonist  we  had,  was  completely 
prostrated,  receiving  but  about  half  the  number  of  votes  that  he 
did  last  year.  .  .  .  It  is  admitted  by  many  that  Strieker 
owes  his  election  entirely  to  the  favorable  views  he  took  of  the 
anti-slavery  principle.  And  Tyson  has  always  been  known  to  be 
zealously  opposed  to  the  system  of  slavery,  though  he  has  never 
consented  to  pledge  himself  to  advocate  its  abolition  upon  the 
plan  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society.! 

The  abolition  party  was  so  encouraged  by  the  result 
of  the  election  that,  two  days  afterward,  October  4,  1826, 
it  put  Raymond  in  nomination  for  the  next  year's  elec 
tion,  and  issued  an  address  to  the  voters  of  Baltimore. 
But,  alas,  for  human  expectations  !  Before  the  October 
elections  of  1827  the  storm  blew  fiercely  for  General  Jack 
son,  the  military  hero,  who  was  secretly  pledged  to  the 


*  "  Genius,"  October  7,  1826. 
f  "  Genius,"  October  13,  1827. 
of  Elisha  Tyson. 


This  gentleman  was  the  biographer 


ABOLITION  IN  THE  SOUTH  BEFORE  1828.         85 

extension  and  national  ascendancy  of  slavery;  and  Mr. 
Eaymond  was  obliged  to  withdraw  from  the  canvass. 

Lundy  wrote  :  "  There  are,  it  is  true,  a  few  advocates 
of  emancipation  in  the  Jackson  party ;  but  the  number  of 
substantial,  reflecting  men  among  them  is  small,  compared 
with  those  favorable  to  the  Administration." 

The  Jackson  party  elected  its  candidates  in  Baltimore, 
both  city  and  county.  Its  victory,  however,  was  a  mortal 
blow  to  the  Maryland  Anti-Slavery  party  which  languished 
from  that  time.  It  did  not  feel  strong  enough  to  nomi 
nate  a  candidate  in  1828,  but  it  brought  forward  Mr. 
Raymond  again  in  1829.  He  came  in  at  the  foot  of  the 
poll,  receiving  only  one  hundred  and  eighty-six  votes. 
That  was  the  last  political  effort  of  the  abolition  party  in 
Maryland.  After  the  inauguration  of  Jackson,  blandish 
ments,  honors,  and  offices  were  used  freely  to  win  the 
State ;  and  gradually  a  free  press  and  an ti- slavery  men 
were  put  under  the  ban,  disappearing  almost  altogether 
after  the  Southampton  insurrection.  It  has  been  argued 
that  if  the  Baltimore  abolitionists  had  nominated  and 
voted  for  their  ticket  in  1827,  they  would  have  increased 
their  vote  from  year  to  year.  But  this  argument  leaves 
out  of  view  the  fact  that  the  movement  in  Maryland  was 
subject  to  the  same  general  causes  which  impeded  and 
finally  arrested  similar  movements  in  all  the  more  northern 
slave  States.  The  retardation  of  anti-slavery  efforts  in 
the  South  kept  even  pace  with  the  advance  of  the  slave- 
holding  Democracy.  Abolitionism  lost  as  Jacksonism 
gained. 

One  more  fact  must  end  this  chapter.  Between  the 
close  of  the  war  in  1815  and  the  end  of  1828  the  follow 
ing  journals  which  avowed  the  extinction  of  slavery  as 
one,  if  not  the  chief  one,  of  their  objects,  were  published 
in  the  Southern  States :  </  . 

I.  "  The  Emancipator  "  (Tennessee),  1819.  v 


86  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

2.  "  The  Abolition  Intelligencer  "  (Kentucky),  1822. 

3.  "  The  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation "  (Ten 
nessee  and  Maryland),  1821. 

4.  "  The  Liberalist  "  (Louisiana),  1828. 

The  "  Genius,"  Lundy's  paper,  was  the  best  of  the 
four,  and  had  the  largest  circulation.  It  was  published 
more  than  twelve  years  in  the  South. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

LONG    VISIT  TO    THE  FREE  STATES. 
1830. 

THE  manner  of  conducting  in  the  North  the  canvass 
of  the  Adams  party  in  1828  had  not  met  the  approval 
of  Mr.  Birney.  During  its  progress,  he  had  repeatedly 
written  to  the  leading  men  and  managers,  urging  that 
personalities  against  Jackson  should  be  dropped  and 
prominence  given  in  the  press  and  on  the  platform,  to  the 
real  issues — "  Texas  annexation  and  nullification."  For 
unexplained  reasons  his  views  did  not  prevail ;  Clay  was 
irresponsive,  and  Adams  stood  coldly  aloof.  The  contest 
was  waged  mainly  on  such  immaterial  issues  as  the  alleged 
bargain  for  office  between  Clay  and  Adams,  the  degree  of 
social  polish  and  literary  education  of  General  Jackson, 
his  marriage,  his  execution  of  Ambrister,  Arbuthnot,  and 
others,  and  his  military  qualifications,  in  all  which  the 
popular  prejudices  were  against  the  Adams  party.  Coffin 
handbills  increased  the  vote  for  Jackson.  The  people 
elected  the  military  hero,  without  inquiring  into,  or  know 
ing  his  probable  policy  in  regard  to  the  extension  of  slave 
territory,  or  his  views  touching  the  right  of  a  State  to 
nullify  the  laws  of  the  Union. 

At  this  result,  Mr.  Birney  was  surprised  as  well  as 
grieved.  HeJiad.  expected  better  things  from  the  North 
ern  and  Middle  States.  Having  done  his  political  duty 
with  energy  in  a  State  in  which  his  party  was  in  a  hope- 


88  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

less  minority,  he  wasted  no  time  in  idle  regrets.  Resum- 
ing  his  practice  in  Alabama  and  Tennessee,  he  again 
devoted  himself  to  his  professional  duties. 

One  of  the  first  effects  in  Alabama  of  Jackson's  elec 
tion  was  the  repeal,  January  22,  1829,  of  the  law  of  1827, 
which  prohibited  the  introduction  of  slaves  into  the  State 
for  sale  or  hire. 

The  inauguration  was  promptly  followed  by  measures 
calculated  to  bring  about  the  acquisition  of  Texas. 

Soon  after  the  close  of  the  war  with  Great  Britain 
(1815),  the  emigration  of  slave-holders  to  Texas  had  been 
encouraged  by  Southern  politicians,  with  a  view  to  the 
ultimate  seizure  of  the  country.  In  1819,  an  armed  in 
vasion  of  Texas  from  the  Southwest  had  been  prevented 
by  the  United  States  Government.  Between  1825  and 
1829,  five  insurrections  had  been  attempted  by  colonists, 
who  were  acting,  the  Mexican  Government  believed,  with 
the  connivance  of  Joel  R.  Poinsett,  of  South  Carolina,  the 
United  States  Minister  to  Mexico.  After  the  accession  of 
Jackson,  the  demonstrations  of  Mr.  Poinsett  became  so 
marked  that  in  August,  Mexico  demanded  his  recall  be 
cause  of  his  intermeddling  with  her  internal  affairs. 

During  the  same  period,  it  became  generally  accepted 
by  intelligent  men  in  Tennessee  and  North  Alabama  that 
the  well-known  Sam  Houston,  always  a  confidential  friend 
and  political  protege  of  General  Jackson's,  was  actively 
employed  in  plans  for  another  insurrection  in  Texas, 
though  ostensibly  acting  as  an  Indian  chief. 

In  the  summer  of  1829  a  series  of  able  essays,  over  the 
signature  "  Americanus,"  urging  the  immediate  purchase 
of  the  province  of  Texas,  were  published  in  the  "  Rich 
mond  Enquirer,"  and  copied  into  many  of  the  other 
Democratic  papers  of  the  South.  The  author  was  under 
stood  to  be  Thomas  H.  Benton,  who  was  then  in  the 
President's  secret  councils.  (Ldind^a."  Genius,"  Septem- 


LOXG  VISIT  TO  THE  FREE  STATES.  89 

It  was  claimed  by  him  that  "  five  or  six 
more  slave-holding  States  may  thus  be  added  to  the  Union" 
which  would  give  the  South  "  a  preponderating  influence 
in  the  councils  of  the  nation."  The  comment  of  the 
"  Enquirer  "  was :  "  The  statesmen  who  are  at  the  head  of 
our  affairs  are  not  the  men  we  take  them  to  be  if  they 
have  not  already  pursued  the  proper  steps  for  obtaining 
the  cession  of  Texas,  even  before  the  able  numbers  of 
Americanus  saw  the  light." 

August  25,  1829,  President  Jackson,  through  the  Sec 
retary  of  State,  authorized  the  United  States  Minister  at 
Mexico  to  offer  four  million,  and,  if  necessary,  five  mill 
ion  dollars  for  the  purchase  of  Texas.  One  of  the  argu 
ments  to  be  used  for  the  sale  was  the  insurgent  dispo 
sition  of  "  the  present  inhabitants  of  Texas  (not  Span 
ish),  which  has,"  says  Van  Buren's  letter,  "  in  the  short 
space  of  five  years,  displayed  itself  in  not  less  than  four 
revolts,  one  of  them  having  for  its  avowed  object  the  in 
dependence  of  the  country."  * 

The  offer  to  buy  was  indignantly  refused  by  the  Mexi 
can  Government,  and  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  fur 
ther  efforts  by  President  Jackson  to  extend  slave  territory 
by  dismembering  Mexico,  a  decree  was  published  by  Presi 
dent  Guerrero  in  the  September  following  abolishing  slav 
ery  in  that  country.  This  was  a  heroic  remedy  for  slave- 
holding  encroachment.  It  had  the  effect  of  arresting  for 
a  time  open  measures  by  Jackson  to  effect  annexation, 
but  it  stimulated  emigration  from  the  South  to  Texas. 
The  emigrants  went  armed,  and  many  of  them  took  slaves 
with  them  in  defiance  of  Mexican  law.  Another  effect 
was  greatly  to  strengthen  the  influence  of  the  nullifiers  or 
separatists  over  the  cotton-planters  of  the  South,  always 

*  See  correspondence  in  full  in  Dr.  Mayo's  "  Eight  Years  in  "Wash 
ington." 


90  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

eager  to  exchange  worn-out  fields  for  fertile  ones  farther 
west. 

Mr.  Birney  regarded  the  political  situation  as  growing 
worse  instead  of  better,  and  frequently  made  it  the  topic 
of  conversation  with  his  visitors,  especially  with  Nicholas 
Davis  and  Arthur  F.  Hopkins,  who  were  Union  men,  and 
had  been  his  coadjutors  in  the  campaign  of  the  preceding 
year. 

In  December,  1829,  he  received  from  Henry  Clay  a 
letter  introducing  Josiah  F.  Polk,  Esq.,  an  agent  of  the 
Colonization  Society,  and  inclosing  a  copy  of  the  very  able 
colonization  speech  recently  made  by  Mr.  Clay  in  Ken 
tucky. 

Mr.  Polk  was  a  man  of  ability.  He  was  Mr.  Birney's 
guest  for  several  days,  and  no  doubt  developed  to  him 
fully,  as  he  understood  them,  the  views  of  Mr.  Clay.  Up 
to  this  time  Mr.  Birney  does  not  appear  to  have  connected 
himself  with  any  colonization  society,  but,  in  January, 
he  aided  Mr.  Polk  to  form  one  at  Huntsville  (Dr.  Watkins, 
president),  and  became  a  subscriber  to  the  "  African  Re 
pository,"  the  monthly  published  by  the  national  organi 
zation.  Not  long  after  he  joined  in  the  formation  of  the 
Madison  County  Colonization  Society,  of  which  he  acted 
as  treasurer  for  about  two  years. 

In  the  same  month,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
occurred  the  bitter  attack  upon  the  New  England  States 
by  Colonel  Hayne,  of  South  Carolina,  and  the  masterly 
answers  by  Daniel  Webster.  These  speeches  brought  out 
strongly  at  the  South  the  lines  of  demarkation  between 
the  Union  and  the  secession  elements.  On  which  side  the 
sympathies  of  James  G.  Birney  lay  was  shown  in  the  fact 
that  he  caused  one  of  his  sons  to  memorize  and  declaim  at 
Greene  Academy  one  of  the  finest  passages  in  Webster's 
speech.  At  no  time  in  his  life  did  he  ever  admit  the 
thought  of  disunion.  In  looking  forward  to  the  future  he ; 

1 


LONG  VISIT  TO  THE  FREE  STATES.  91 

saw  no  divided  country.  In  his  patriotism  he  knew  no 
North,  no  South,  no  East,  no  West.  For  the  first  time  in 
the  history  of  American  oratory  had  the.  grand  idea  of 
"  the  nation "  been  adequately  expressed.  He  looked 
upon  Webster's  speech  as  affording  a  basis  for  the  organi 
zation  of  all  good  men,  North  and  South,  into  a  party  for 
the  defense  of  the  Union  and  the  prevention  of  slavery 
extension.  He  determined  to  visit  the  free  States,  confer 
with  leading  Union  men,  and  judge  for  himself  the  con 
dition  of  public  opinion.  It  was  only  a  few  months  be 
fore  the  opportunity  to  visit  the  North  on  a  highly  honor 
able  mission  was  extended  to  him.  In  the  summer  of 
1830  the  board  of  trustees  of  the  University  of  Alabama, 
having  received  a  more  liberal  endowment,  resolved  to 
add  to  the  faculty  of  the  institution  a  president  and  four 
professors.  They  unanimously  requested  Mr.  Birney  to 
visit  the  Atlantic  States  on  their  behalf,  make  selections 
of  such  persons  as  he  should  think  suitable,  and  recom 
mend  them  for  appointment.  The  request  was  communi 
cated  by  Governor  Moore  with  a  private  letter  urging  him 
to  accept.  Such  a  tribute  from  political  opponents  was 
grateful.  He  accepted.  As  soon  as  this  was  known  his 
co-trustees  of  the  Huntsville  Female  Seminary  requested 
him  to  select  three  teachers  for  it.  In  the  performance  of 
this  double  duty  he  left  home  about  the  first  of  August 
and  was  absent  until  the  end  of  October,  visiting  Virginia, 
Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  Connecticut,  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  Ohio.  He  bore  letters  of  introduction 
from  Governor  Moore,  C.  C.  Clay,  Henry  Clay,  and 
soTne—trfcher  men  of  note,  and  appears  to  have  visited 
many  prominent  educators  and  statesmen  in  the  East. 
11  is  daily  memoranda  from  August  31st  to  October  1st 
have  been  preserved.  They  are  very  brief  and  were  evi 
dently  intended  simply  to  remind  him  of  dates  of 
visits  : 


92  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

August  31st. — Went  this  morning  and  delivered  a  note  writ 
ten  by  Mr.  John  Sergeant  to  his  brother  Thomas. 

Delivered  my  letter  from  Governor  Moore  to  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Hemphill.  He  received  me  very  kindly. 

Delivered  my  letter  to  Dr.  Chapman.  It  was  from  Mr.  H. 
Clay.  Received  very  kindly.  Soon  felt  as  if  I  were  conversing 
with  an  old  acquaintance  or  confidential  friend ;  and  yet  there  is 
at  first  something  very  courtier-like  in  his  address. 

Delivered  a  letter  of  introduction  from  President  Woods,  of 
Lexington,  to  the  Rev.  W.  T.  B.  .  .  .  He  conversed  with  great 
ease  as  a  scholar  of  good  taste. 

In  the  afternoon  Mr.  Dallas  (Geo.  M.)  went  with  me  to  the 
house  of  Joseph  R.  Ingersoll.  ...  I  felt  much  pleased  at  the 
frank  and  polite  manners  of  Mr.  Ingersoll. 

Dr.  McAuley,  who,  all  men  with  whom  I  have  conversed  who 
know  him  say,  is  qualified  in  a  remarkable  manner  for  such  a 
presidency,  declines  being  considered  as  a  candidate.  He  recom 
mends  Dr.  Wisner,  of  Boston,  or  Mr.  Spencer,  of  North 
ampton. 

He  went  from  Philadelphia  to  Princeton,  and  saw  Drs. 
Miller  and  Alexander ;  then  to  New  Brunswick,  where  lie 
called  on  his  old  college  friend,  George  Wood,  "  the  most 
distinguished  lawyer  in  the  State,"  and  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  the  President  and  professors  of  Rutgers  College ; 
then  to  New  York,  where  he  saw  Profs.  Charles  Antlion, 
Henry  Vethake,  Renwick,  Griscom,  and  others ;  then  to 
New  Haven,  where  he  saw  President  Day,  Drs.  Taylor 
and  Fitch,  Judge  Daggett,  Mr.  Ingersoll,  and  others. 
There,  and  in  the  neighborhood,  lie  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  Messrs.  Andrews  and  Stoddart,  afterward  distin 
guished  as  authors  of  a  Latin  grammar. 

In  the  afternoon,  heard  Mr.  Bacon  (Leonard  G.),  a  Congrega 
tional  preacher,  a  very  superior  man. 

At  Middletown  he  saw  Wilbur  Fisk,  president  of  the 
Methodist  college.  At  Hartford  he  called  on  Henry 
Hudson,  whose  wife — 


LONG  VISIT  TO  THE  FREE  STATES.  93 

a  very  sensible  and  polite  woman,  on  my  expressing  a  desire  to 
see  Miss  Beecher  (Catherine),  accompanied  me  to  her  home  and 
introduced  me  to  her.  She  is  good-looking — not  handsome — 
good  figure.  I  informed  her  of  my  wish  to  engage  teachers  for 
a  female  academy  at  Huntsville.  She  recommended  three  young 
ladies  in  her  school,  and  desired  until  to-morrow  to  consult  with 
them  in  relation  to  the  matter.  Before  I  left  her  lodgings  she 
presented  me  with  a  copy  of  her  work  on  education.  Retired  to 
my  room  and  read  it  through  before  bedtime. 

The  result  of  several  visits  to  Miss  Beecher  and  the 
three  young  ladies  was  the  employment  of  the  latter  to 
teach  at  Huntsville.  They  were  Misses  Brown,  South- 
may  d,  and  Baldwin.  They  remained  several  years  at 
Huntsville,  and  were  eminently  successful.  Mr.  Birney 
was  so  much  pleased  with  Miss  Emmons's  infant  school, 
a  sort  of  "  kindergarten  "  affair,  that  he  induced  her  to  go 
to  Huntsville  with  the  other  ladies  and  establish  her  school 
there,  guaranteeing  a  certain  pecuniary  success.  Such  a 
school  was  a  novelty  in  Alabama,  and,  under  the  able 
management  of  Miss  Emmons,  nourished  for  many  years. 

Mr.  Birney  visited  the  famous  Round  Hill  School,  then 
kept  by  Mr.  Cogswell  and  George  Bancroft,  now  famous 
as  a  historian ;  and  he  recorded  his  pleasure  in  the  con 
versation  of  Mr.  Bancroft,  who,  among  other  things,  "  gave 
me  some  history  of  the  management  of  German  universi 
ties,  showing  a  very  excellent  plan." 

He  reached  Boston  September  17th,  the  second  cen 
tennial  anniversary  of  that  city.  There  he  saw  many  emi 
nent  men.  He  notes  Mr.  Evarts  as  "  one  of  the  most 
unostentatious  and  sensible  men  I  have  met,"  and  Dr. 
Wisner  as  "  all  he  had  been  represented — fine  appearance, 
easy  and  flowing  in  language,"  etc. 

Went  to  deliver  my  letter  from  Dr.  Chapman  to  Daniel  Web 
ster.  Received  me  in  his  office  very  courteously.  He  concluded 
by  referring  me  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  a  learned  professor  of  Harvard, 


94  JAMES  G.  BIRKEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

to  whom  he  addressed  a  note,  and  sent  a  servant  to  show  me 
the  house. 

He  dined  with  Dr.  Wisner.  Among  the  guests  invited 
to  meet  him  was  Dr.  Bacon,  of  New  Haven. 

Sept.  19th. — Heard  Dr.  Channing  in  the  morning.  He  fell 
below  my  expectations  in  everything  but  in  the  finish  of  his  es 
say,  for  it  could  scarcely  be  called  a  sermon.  Heard  Dr.  Beecher 
(Lyman)  in  the  afternoon.  His  manner  not  good,  though  some 
times  impressive. 

Sept.  20th. — Went  to  Cambridge  this  morning  and  delivered 
my  letter  from  Mr.  Clay  to  President  Quincy.  .  .  .  Went  after 
dinner  again  to  Charlestown  to  see  Mr.  Everett  (Edward).  Found 
huii  a  most  polite  and  affable  gentleman,  etc. 

Sept.  21st. — Went  in  company  with  Mr.  Evarts,  Dr.  Beecher, 
and  others  to  Andover,  this  being  the  "commencement." 

He  revisited  Middletown,  Hartford,  and  New  Haven, 
and  entered  into  negotiations  at  New  York  with  Theodore 
D.  Woolsey,  afterward  professor  and  president  at  Yale. 

After  seeing  hundreds  of  persons,  including  many  pub 
lic  men,  and  finding  that  most  of  those  he  would  have 
preferred  as  professors  were  unavailable,  either  because  of 
previous  engagements  or  disinclination  to  make  homes  in 
the  South,  he  returned  home  by  way  of  Ohio  and  Ken 
tucky.  One  of  the  results  of  his  Northern  tour  was  the 
following  recommendations  to  the  trustees  of  the  Univer 
sity  of  Alabama : 

Rev.  Alva  Woods,  D.  D.,  President ;  Gordon  Salston- 
stall  and  William  W.  Hudson,  Professors  of  Mathematics, 
Natural  Philosophy,  and  Astronomy;  John  F.  Wallis, 
Professor  of  Chemistry,  Mineralogy,  and  Geology ;  Henry 
Tutwiler,  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  Professor  of  An 
cient  Languages ;  and  Rev.  Henry  W.  Hilliard,  of  English 
Literature.  All  these  entered  upon  the  duties  of  their  re 
spective  posts  in  1831.  The  trustees  of  the  university 


LONG  VISIT  TO  THE  FREE  STATES.  95 

unanimously  voted  a  letter  of  thanks  to  Mr.  Birney  for 
his  services  in  the  selection. 

The  most  marked  effect  of  his  long  visit  to  the  North 
was  to  freshen  and  strengthen  his  convictions  of  the  su 
periority  of  free  over  slave  institutions.  He  started  on  his 
return  journey,  thinking  seriously  of  the  problem  of  add 
ing  Kentucky  and  Virginia  to  the  list  of  free  States,  but 
greatly  disappointed  at  the  apparent  unconsciousness 
among  Northern  public  men  of  any  imminent  danger  in 
the  political  situation.  He  returned  through  Ohio,  in 
order  to  observe  for  himself  the  condition  of  a  free  State 
in  the  West. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

ABANDONS  PARTY  POLITICS— INTENDED  REMOVAL 
TO  ILLINOIS— VISIT  OF  T.  D.   WELD. 

1830-1832. 

BEFORE  returning  to  Alabama  Mr.  Birney  spent  two 
weeks  in  Kentucky.  The  special  purpose  of  this  delay 
was  to  confer  with  Mr.  Clay  in  relation  to  the  movement 
in  behalf  of  gradual  emancipation  which  had  been  fore 
shadowed  arid  outlined  in  the  latter's  speech  of  the  pre 
vious  December.  Mr.  Birney  went  to  Lexington,  and  made 
several  visits  to  Ashland.  What  passed  between  him  and 
Mr.  Clay  was  never  stated  by  either  of  them.  The  result, 
however,  was  that  the  two  never  again  traveled  on  the 
same  political  path.  In  October,  1830,  James  G.  Birney 's 
practical  connection  with  the  national  Republican  party 
ceased.  He  took  no  part  either  in  the  political  prepara 
tions  for  the  candidacy  of  Henry  Clay  in  1832,  or  in  the 
campaign;  and  he  did  not  vote  at  the  election  in  that 
year.  It  may  be  added  that  when  the  Whig  party  was 
formed  he  did  not  join  it,  or  act,  or  vote  with  it ;  he  never 
cast  a  Whig  ballot.  The  contrary  has  been  so  often  as 
serted  as  to  have  become  a  conventional  statement  in 
sketches  of  his  life  written  by  Whigs ;  the  only  foundation 
for  it  being  his  political  friendship  for  Henry  Clay  up  to 
the  month  of  October,  1830. 

The  personal  friendship  between  them  remained  un 
broken.  Mr.  Birney  maintained  ever  afterward  a  guarded 


ABANDONS  PARTY   POLITICS.  97 

reticence  in  reference  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  the  latter,  it  is 
believed,  never  uttered  an  unkind  or  disrespectful  word 
about  his  former  friend,  even  under  the  provocations  and 
mortification  of  his  defeat  in  1844 — a  defeat  falsely  attrib 
uted  by  many  of  his  friends  to  Mr.  Birney.  In  truth, 
they  never  saw  each  other  again,  except  once  in  1834 ; 
and  the  previous  correspondence  between  them,  in  which 
Mr.  Clay  had  repeatedly  spoken  of  him  as  "  one  of  his 
most  esteemed  friends,"  shrunk  into  a  few  letters  on  profes 
sional  business  written  at  long  intervals.  For  several  years 
immediately  preceding  these  visits  Mr.  Birney  had  not 
seen  Mr.  Clay,  and  his  idea  of  the  man  had  been  formed 
of  youth's  illusions  crowned  with  a  halo  of  Mr.  Clay's 
fame  as  an  orator  and  statesman.  In  these  years  Mr.  Bir 
ney  himself  had  greatly  changed ;  his  character  had  been 
purified  and  strengthened  by  his  religious  faith ;  his  knowl 
edge  of  men  was  without  selfishness.  The  interviews  at 
Ashland  dispelled  his  illusions  in  regard  to  Mr.  Clay ;  in 
stead  of  a  statesman,  he  found  a  rhetorician  and  politician. 
He  left  Ashland  deeply  disappointed,  and,  it  may  be  added, 
perplexed  and  discouraged. 

In  October,  1830,  the  times  were  propitious  for  a  polit 
ical  movement  against  the  menaced  annexation  of  Texas 
and  consequent  permanent  domination  of  the  slave-hold 
ing  interest,  and  in  favor  of  a  reduction  in  the  number  of 
slave-holding  States  by  emancipation  in  Kentucky  and  Vir 
ginia.  In  such  a  movement,  alone,  could  the  issues  tend 
ered  by  the  Jackson  Democrats  be  fairly  met,  or  a  suc 
cessful  appeal  be  made  to  that  national  sentiment  which 
had  united  the  North  in  1820  against  the  admission  of 
Missouri,  excluded  slavery  from  Illinois  in  1824,  and  abol 
ished  it  in  New  York  in  1827.  The  North,  which  had 
never  listened  to  the  cry  of  oppressed  humanity,  might  be 
depended  upon  to  resist  its  own  subjugation  to  the  South. 
As  to  the  two  principal  border  States,  an  influential  por- 
6 


98  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

tion  of  the  slave-holders  themselves  favored  freedom.  At 
its  first  annual  meeting,  held  in  1830,  the  Kentucky  Colo 
nization  Society  had  adopted  the  following  statement  in 
the  manager's  report :  "  The  late  disposition  to  voluntary 
emancipation  is  so  increasing  that  no  law  is  necessary  to 
free  us  from  slavery,  provided  there  was  an  asylum  acces 
sible  to  all  liberated.  (See  "African  Kepository,"  May, 
1830.) 

Such  a  movement  was  contemplated  in  1821,  under 
the  leadership  of  Kuf  us  King ;  but  it  was  defeated  by  the 
non-concurrence  of  the  friends  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
who  hoped  to  be  made  President  in  182-4,  with  a  Southern 
man  as  Vice-President — General  Jackson  being  the  one 
considered  as  available. 

Everything  pointed  to  Henry  Clay  as  the  leader  of 
such  a  movement  in  1830.  He  was  the  favorite  son  of 
Kentucky,  a  popular  man  in  his  native  State  of  Virginia, 
and  the  champion  of  the  capitalists  and  manufacturers  of 
the  Northern  and  Eastern  States.  For  his  disastrous  er 
rors  on  the  Arkansas  and  Missouri  questions  he  had  apolo 
gized  in  declarations,  often  repeated,  against  the  "  curse 
of  slavery  " ;  and,  in  his  December  speech  in  1829,  he  had 
sketched  a  programme  of  operations  for  the  final  extinc 
tion  of  slavery  wrhich  authorized  all  thinking  men  to  be 
lieve  him  ready  to  join  in  them. 

But  Mr.  Clay  took  a  different  view.  For  his  expected 
candidacy  in  1832  he  was  trimming  his  sails  to  catch  the 
winds  from  both  North  and  South,  hoping  to  win  General 
Jackson's  friends,  and  work  his  way  to  the  presidential 
chair  by  concessions  to  enemies,  glittering  but  equivocal 
phrases,  and  waivers  of  his  professed  principles,  which 
gained  for  him  repeated  defeats  and  the  unenviable  title 
of  "  the  compromiser."  He  not  only  refused  to  participate 
personally  in  a  gradual  emancipation  movement  in  Ken 
tucky,  but  advised  his  friends  not  to  do  so ;  and  it  was 


ABANDONS  PARTY  POLITICS.  99 

chiefly  through  his  influence  that  the  efforts  to  set  one  on 
foot  were  chilled. 

Before  calling  on  Mr.  Clay  Mr.  Birney  had  talked  over 
the  gradual  emancipation  project  with  the  Rev.  John  C. 
Young,  the  eloquent  President  of  Centre  College ;  with 
Rev.  J.  D.  Paxton,  Judge  John  Green,  Daniel  Yeiser,  P. 
G.  Rice,  Michael  G.  Yonce,  and  William  Armstrong — all 
of  Danville ;  with  his  wife's  uncle  James  McDowell,  and 
his  long-time  friends  Thomas  T.  Skillman,  bookseller  and 
publisher,  and  the  Rev.  Robert  J.  Breckenridge — all  of 
Lexington. 

All  these  were  ready  to  act,  and  thought  many  others 
would  join  them.  The  following  paper  was  circulated  for 
signatures.  Fourteen  respectable  citizens  subscribed  their 
names.  At  this  point^eJLojrt  ceased  until,  at  the  instance 
of  Mr.  Birney,  who  wrote  from  Alabama,  Mr.  Skillman, 
the  proprietor  of  the  "  Western  Luminary,"  of  Lexington, 
published  the  paper  in  that  journal. 

GRADUAL   AXD    SAFE    EMANCIPATION. 

We,  the  undersigned,  slave-holders,  under  a  full  conviction 
that  there  are  insurmountable  obstacles  to  the  general  emancipa 
tion  of  the  present  generation  of  slaves,  but  equally  convinced 
of  the  necessity  and  practicability  of  emancipating  their  future 
offspring,  have  determined  to  form  ourselves  into  a  society  for 
the  purpose  of  investigating  and  impressing  these  truths  upon 
the  public  mind,  as  well  by  example  as  by  precept  ;  by  adopting 
among  ourselves  such  a  system  for  the  gradual  emancipation  of 
our  slaves  as  we  would  recommend  to  our  fellow-citizens  for  their 
adoption  as  the  law  of  the  land  ;  and  by  dispersing  such  writings 
as  may  be  likely  to  contribute  to  so  good  an  end.  The  society 
will  not  be  called  together  until  fifty  subscribers  are  obtained. 

Wm.  R.  Hines,  Bardstown ;  Samuel  K.  Snead,  Jefferson  Co. ; 
J.  M.  C.  Irving  R.  J.  Breckenridge,  of  Fayette  Co. ;  A.  J.  Alex 
ander,  Charles  Alexander,  J.  R.  Alexander,  Woodford  Co. ;  James 
McCall,  Rockcastle  Co. ;  John  Wallace,  Fayette  Co. ;  Norman 
Porter,  Thomas  T.  Skillman,  Lexington  ;  George  Clarke,  Fay- 


100  JAMES  a.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

ette  Co. ;  James  Blythe,  Lexington  ;  George  "W.  Anderson,  Fay- 
ette  Co. ;  James  G.  McKinney,  Lexington  ;  James  H.  Allen, 
James  McDowell,  Fayette  Co. 

These  gentlemen  were  among  the  most  respected  citi 
zens  of  Kentucky.  Within  a  few  weeks  thirty-four  more 
slave-holders  sent  in  their  names  as  members,  and,  as  re 
ceived,  they  were  published  in  the  "  Luminary."  They 
were  as  follows : 

Fayette  Co. :  J.  S.  Berryman,  Rowland  Chambers,  Geo.  M. 
Chambers,  John  C.  Richardson,  Hugh  Foster,  J.  C.  Harrison, 
Rev.  Robert  Stuart,  James  C.  Todd,  and  John  H.  Bell ;  Mercer 
Co. :  Thomas  Cleland,  Michael  G.  Yonce,  P.  G.  Rice,  President 
John  C.  Y"oung,  William  Armstrong,  Rev.  John  D.  Paxton,  and 
Daniel  Yeiser  ;  Lincoln  Co. :  Judge  John  Green,  John  L.  Yantis, 
and  Samuel  Warren ;  Woodford  Co. :  William  E.  Ashmore,  Samuel 
Wingfield,  Samuel  V.  Marshall,  Robert  Moffett,  Dr.  Louis  Mar 
shall,  Colonel  John  Steele,  and  Dr.  C.  Wallace  ;  Franklin  Co. : 
C.  P.  Bacon  and  Rev.  j:  T.  Edgar  ;  Hardin  Co. :  David  Weller  ; 
and  Jefferson  Co. :  Warrick  Miller. 

Any  native  Kentuckian  familiar  with  the  old  families 
of  the  State  will  recognize  the  above  list  as  remarkable 
for  the  intelligence,  wealth,  and  influence  of  the  persons 
named  in  it.  Most  of  them  were  Presbyterians,  and  at 
least  six  of  them  were  Presbyterian  preachers,  three  of 
these  Reverends — Robert  J.  Breckenridge,  John  C.  Young, 
and  John  D.  Paxton — being  men  of  national  reputation. 
Mr.  Birney,  not  being  a  resident  of  the  State  did  not  sign 
the  paper ;  but  he  was  alluded  to  as  follows  by  his  friend 
Mr.  Skillman,  of  the  "  Luminary  " : 

In  reply  to  a  correspondent  in  Illinois,  who  wishes  to  know 
what  Presbyterians  are  doing  in  this  cause,  we  remark  that  the 
first  projector  of  this  emancipation  scheme,  as  published  in  sev 
eral  of  our  last  numbers,  is  a  Presbyterian  ;  and  that,  so  far  as 
we  are  informed,  Presbyterians  generally  have  taken  a  prominent 
part  in  promoting  these  benevolent  schemes,  whose  object  is  the 
amelioration  of  the  condition  of  our  colored  population. 


ABANDONS  PARTY  POLITICS.  101 

But  tliis  well-considered  scheme  came  to  naught,  for 
want  of  a  leader  in  Kentucky.  Among  its  friends,  this 
role  might  have  been  taken  by  Judge  Green,  E.  J.  Breck- 
enridge,  or  John  0.  Young ;  but  the  Judge  was  absorbed 
in  business,  Mr.  Breckenridge  about  that  time  quit  law 
for  theology  and  had  his  hands  full  of  controversies,  and 
Mr.  Young  was  the  president  of  a  college.  Mr.  Clay's 
friends  were  begging  for  postponement,  until  after  the 
next  presidential  election,  of  a  movement  likely  to  com 
promise  him  either  with  the  South  or  the  North;  and 
they  were  full  of  promises.  The  opportune  moment  was 
lost,  and  the  Gradual  Emancipation  Society  was  not  organ 
ized  when  it  might  have  accomplished  something.  It  was 
postponed  to  a  more  convenient  season. 

\  Mr.  Birney  had  now  experienced  three  disappoint 
ments  :  The  trade  in  slaves  between  Alabama  and  the 
slave-breeding  States  of  Kentucky  and  Virginia  had  been 
again  legalized  ;  he  had  been  forced  to  dismiss  Henry  Clay 
out  of  his  life  and  hopes ;  and  his  native  State  appeared 
to  be  on  the  downward  road  to  the  abyss.  His  letters  to 
his  father  in  1831  were  decidedly  pessimistic  so  far  as  the 
South  was  concerned,  and  that,  with  his  estrangement 
from  Clay,  caused  his  father  much  concern.  The  writer 
was  under  his  grandfather's  care  at  the  time,  heard  these 
letters  read  as  they  were  received,  and  has  never  forgotten 
the  impression  made  by  them.  The  worst  elements  of 
Southern  society  seemed  to  Mr.  Birney  to  be  rapidly  gain 
ing  the  mastery ;  and  neither  the  Church  nor  the  state 
indicated  any  power  of  resistance.  What  distressed  him 
more  than  anything  else  was  that  circumstances  were 
forcing  him  to  bring  up  his  children  amid  the  corrupting 
influences  of  slavery.  He  was  apparently  tied  down  to 
.Alabama)  by  his  established  profession,  his  friends,  his 
home,  his  church,  his  large  property,  and  his  usefulness 
in  the  educational  interests  of  the  State.  From  all  these 


102  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

lie  began  to  think  of  separating  himself,  in  order  to  flee 
from  the  Sodom  of  slavery  with  his  large  family.  It  was 
not  possible,  without  heavy  pecuniary  sacrifices.  He  had 
under  advisement  the  project  of  closing  up  his  business, 
selling  out  his  property,  and  finding  a  home  for  his  family 
in  a  free  State,  when  the  startling  news  of  the  Southamp 
ton,  Va.,  insurrection,  in  August,  1831,  burst  upon  the 
South,  with  its  train  of  bloody  horrors.  It  may  have  been 
this  that  turned  the  trembling  balance  in  favor  of  removal. 
In  the  months  of  October  and  November  following  Mr. 
Birney  visited  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  with  a  view  to 
the  selection  of  a  place  in  which  to  rear  and  educate  his 
children.  After  seeing  the  principal  cities  and  towns  in 
those  States,  he  made  choice  of  Jacksonville,  111.  Aside 
from  its  beautiful  site  and  the  fertility  of  the  adjacent 
country,  the  chief  attraction  was  the  intelligence  of  the 
population  and  the  imminent  establishment  of  a  college, 
of  which  the  Rev.  Edward  Beecher  was  to  be  the  presi 
dent.  When  he  returned  to  Hunts ville,  it  was  with  the 
definite  intention  to  wind  up  his  law  business,  sell  his 
landed  property,  and  make  all  other  necessary  adjustments 
of  his  affairs,  so  that  he  might  remove  his  family,  includ 
ing  his  servants,  to  Jacksonville.  This,  he  thought,  would 
require  from  eighteen  months  to  two  years.  He  began  at 
once,  by  declining  new  law  business  and  making  sale  of 
half  his  largest  piece  of  real  estate  in  Huntsville. 

On  his  journey  homeward  through  Tennessee  an  inci 
dent  occurred  which  illustrates  his  benevolence.  After 
supper,  one  evening,  he  was  sitting  on  the  front  porch  of 
the  tavern  at  which  he  was  stopping  for  the  night  when 
he  was  startled  by  piercing  shrieks  and  the  sound  of  blows 
of  a  whip  from  an  outhouse.  The  voice  was  that  of  a 
woman.  Such  sounds  were  not  uncommon  in  the  South, 
but  Mr.  Birney  could  not  bear  them ;  he  interfered.  The 
person  wielding  the  cowhide  was  a  large  and  powerful  white 


INTENDED  REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS.  103 

woman ;  the  victim  was  a  negro  woman  about  twenty-five 
years  old,  who  was  tied  by  her  wrists  to  a  joist  of  the  up 
per  floor  in  such  a  manner  that  she  stood  on  tiptoe.  Her 
clothing  was  stripped  from  her  shoulders  to  the  waist, 
and  her  bared  back  was  interlaced  with  bluish  welts,  old 
and  new.  A  mulatto  girl  child  of  about  five  years  old 
cowered  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  terrified  and  silent.  The 
cause  of  the  punishment  was  explained  at  once ;  the  slave- 
woman  was  the  mistress  of  the  tavern-keeper ;  the  child 
was  theirs ;  and  the  wronged  wife  was  wreaking  her  venge 
ance  upon  her  rival.  The  voice  of  sympathy  was  to  the 
poor  slave  as  the  voice  of  an  angel  of  God.  She  watched 
her  opportunity,  found  Mr.  Birney  alone,  and  implored 
him  to  save  her  and  her  child  from  the  hell  on  earth  in 
which  they  had  lived  for  five  years.  In  short,  Mr.  Birney 
bought  the  woman  and  child  from  his  host,  who,  to  do 
him  justice,  was  glad  to  send  them  out  of  reach  of  his 
wife,  put  them  into  the  stage-coach,  and  took  them  with 
him  to  Huntsville.  The  writer  well  remembers  the 
wretched  plight  of  the  woman  and  child  when  they  ar 
rived,  and  that  for  a  year  or  two  afterward  the  child  did 
not  entirely  lose  the  nervous,  frightened  look  of  a  timid 
and  hunted  creature. 

At  the  time  of  this  purchase,  Mr.  Birney  was  not  an 
abolitionist;  no  cavils  as  to  the  propriety  of  his  action 
perplexed  him.  Indeed,  after  he  became  one,  he  was  not 
given  to  those  subtle  quiddities  of  doctrine  which  prevent 
ed  some  abolitionists  from  contributing  funds  to  buy  the 
freedom  of  Frederick  Douglass,  because,  forsooth,  the  pur 
chase  would  be  a  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  master. 
He  always,  in  proper  cases,  contributed  his  share  of  the 
ransom.  Like  the  sisters  Grimke,  who  also  were  Southern 
abolitionists,*  Mr.  Birney  never  reached  that  sublimation 

*  See  "The  Sisters  Grimke,"  pages  41,  133,  233,  250,  and  314. 


104:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  doctrine  which  made  some  turn  away  from  the  slave 
when  he  besought  aid  in  the  anguish  of  his  soul. 

Early  in  January,  1832,  the  news  of  a  bloody  slave  in 
surrection  in  Jamaica,  involving  the  burning  of  many 
sugar  plantations  and  the  loss  of  many  lives,  reached  Tus- 
caloosa,  where  the  Alabama  General  Assembly  was  in  ses 
sion.  From  day  to  day  the  wildest  rumors  spread  through 
the  State  of  arson  and  massacre ;  it  was  said  that  all  the 
slaves  of  that  island  had  revolted,  and  were  devastating  the 
country  and  massacring  the  women  and  children.  The 
truth  was  that  the  whites  were  murdering  the  blacks,  kill 
ing  in  January  more  than  two  thousand,  and  the  blacks 
were  making  feeble  defense  and  reprisals. 

Occurring  within  a  few  months  after  the  insurrection 
in  Virginia,  the  event  caused  a  general  panic  through  the 
slave-holding  States.  At  Tuscaloosa,  the  effect  was  a 
strong  reaction  in  favor  of  re-enacting  the  law  of  1827, 
which  had  been  repealed  in  1829.  Mr.  Birney  was  at 
Tuscaloosa  in  attendance  on  the  courts.  He  and  others 
prepared  an  elaborate  bill  in  more  than  twenty  sections, 
entitled  "  An  Act  to  prevent  the  introduction  of  slaves 
into  Alabama,  and  for  other  purposes  "  ;  and  this,  with  a 
few  amendments,  was  passed  and  approved  by  the  Govern 
or  on  the  16th  of  January,  1832.  It  was  the  expiring 
throb  of  the  free- soil  sentiment  in  Alabama,  for  the  reac 
tion  died  out  within  a  few  months,  and  the  ten  most  im 
portant  sections  of  the  law  were  repealed  by  the  next 
General  Assembly  on  the  4th  day  of  December,  immedi 
ately  after  the  beginning  of  the  session.  It  is  believed 
that  no  subsequent  effort  was  made  to  check  the  importa 
tion  of  slaves  into  the  State.  Cotton  was  king,  and  ruled 
until  its  crown  was  torn  off  by  the  bloody  hand  of  war. 

Before  Mr.  Birney  left  Tucaloosa,  he  had  informed  Mr. 
Clay's  friends  of  his  intention  to  take  no  part  in  the  pend 
ing  presidential  campaign ;  and  during  the  year  1832  he 


VISIT  OP  THEODORE  D.  WELD.  105 

was  not  present  at  any  meeting  held  for  political  purposes, 
nor  did  he  contribute  to  any  party  fund.  He  simply  held 
himself  aloof,  and  devoted  his  energies  to  closing  up  his 
business  and  making  sale  of  his  real  estate,  preparatory  to 
removing  to  Illinois.  This  intention,  however,  was  not 
yet  publicly  declared. 

Since  his  early  manhood,  his  liberalism  in  regard  to 
slavery  had  been  generally  recognized ;  but  during  the 
five  years  preceding  1832  he  had  become  widely  known  in 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Alabama,  as  a  friend  of  gradual 
emancipation.  Among  the  Presbyterians  his  reputation 
in  this  respect  was  well  established.  His  wife  and  older 
children  were  well  aware  of  his  intention  to  take  his  slaves 
to  Illinois  and  free  them  there ;  and  his  sons  had  been 
carefully  taught  habits  of  self-reliance,  and  forbidden  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  services  of  the  slaves. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  when  the  famous  plat 
form  orator,  Theodore  D.  Weld,  was  making  his  arrange 
ments  in  Ohio,  in  the  spring  of  1832,  for  a  lecturing  tour 
on  temperance  and  manual-labor  education  through  Ken 
tucky,  Tennessee,  and  Alabama,  he  heard  of  James  G.  Bir- 
ney  as  a  Union  man  and  emancipationist,  and  obtained 
letters  of  introduction  to  him.  The  commendations  be 
stowed  on  him  by  the  writers  of  these  letters  inspired 
Mr.  Weld  with  a  strong  desire  to  make  his  acquaintance. 
How  he  did  so  is  best  told  by  himself.  In  1882  the  author 
wrote  Mr.  Weld  for  the  details  of  his  conversation  with 
Mr.  Birney.  Under  date  of  September  10th  of  that  year, 
Mr.  Weld  answered  : 

Your  honored  father's  bearing  and  spirit  in  those  conversa 
tions  so  strongly  moved  me  that  now  that  I  write  that  aspect  of 
serene  right-mindedness  is  all  undimmed,  although  I  look  at  it 
through  the  mists  of  half  a  century.  It  seems  just  as  fresh  and 
vivid  as  when,  in  1832,  it  first  won  my  love  and  reverence  at  Hunts- 
ville,  whither  I  went  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  him  from 


106  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES, 

Prof.  Larrabee,  of  Jackson  College,  Tennessee,  afterward  for 
some  twenty-five  years  president  of  Middlebury  College,  Ver 
mont.  As  Prof.  Larrabee  handed  me  the  letter,  he  said  :  "Mr. 
Birney  is  one  of  the  noblest  men  I've  ever  met.  Though  a  slave- 
holder3  he  has  nothing  of  the  slave-holding  spirit."  How  true  to 
the  letter  I  found  that  testimony  during  the  close  intimacy  of 
years  that  followed.  When  I  called  at  his  house  to  deliver  the 
letter,  he  was  away  on  his  judicial  circuit,  and  not  to  be  at  home 
for  a  week.* 

Mr.  Weld  became  the  guest  of  Dr.  Allen,  the  Presby 
terian  preacher.  He  says : 

I  found  the  doctor  the  holder  of  two  families  of  slaves,  fifteen 
in  number — the  oldest  ones  the  marriage  portion  of  his  wife,  the 
younger  their  children.  He  said  that  one  of  his  slaves  was  a 
Baptist  elder,  and  generally  preached  on  Sunday  to  the  slaves  on 
the  neighboring  plantations.  The  doctor  was  quite  free  to  talk 
of  slavery. 

Nothing  could  have  suited  Mr.  Weld  better.  He  had 
been  an  immediate  abolitionist  from  early  boyhood,  was 
versed  in  the  philosophy  of  human  rights,  familiar  with 
all  the  aspects  of  slavery,  was  full  of  fire  and  eloquence, 
and  a  match  for  the  doctor  in  argument,  although  the 
latter  was  distinguished  for  his  ability.  At  that  time  the 
padlock  had  not  become  the  normal  attachment  to  the 
lips  of  men  in  the  South.  Mr.  Weld  says : 

In  previous  years,  while  yet  in  my  teens,  and  just  out  of  them, 
say  from  eighteen  to  twenty-one,  I  had  often  talked  with  slave 
holders  about  the  system — when  slavery  was  not  a  contraband 
topic.  My  travels  and  sojourn  were  mainly  in  Maryland,  Dela 
ware,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and  District  of  Columbia,  and 
•those  with  whom  my  introductions  brought  me  in  contact,  and 
who  often  made  me  their  guest,  talked  about  slavery  with  entire 
freedom,  not  only  tolerating  my  dissent,  but  even  encouraging  it 

*  This  fact  fixes  the  date  of  this  visit  in  June.  During  May  the  ses 
sion  of  the  court  was  in  Iluntsville. 


VISIT  OF  THEODORE  D.  WELD. 

by  never  showing  irritation  or  impatience  ;  and  always  (indeed, 
I  can  recall  no  exception)  condemning  it  as  a  system,  but  gener 
ally  were  hopeless  of  deliverance  ;  and  here  and  there  I  found  a 
slave-holder  saying,  "I  agree  with  you,"  and  one  who  pooh- 
poohed  at  the  prophecy  that  if  the  slaves  were  emancipated  they 
would  cut  their  masters'  throats.  "Nonsense  !  they  might  do  it 
to  get  their  liberty,  but  never  bemuse  they  had  it."  But  though 
I  had  thus  much  talk  with  slave-holders  previously,  Dr.  Allen 
was  the  only  one  with  whom  I  had  in  such  length  and  minute 
detail  discussed  the  question. 

The  discussion  between  Mr.  Weld  and  Dr.  Allen  lasted 
a  week,  much  of  it  turning  on  the  nature  of  the  right 
under  which  one  man  could  claim  another  as  a  slave. 
When  Mr.  Birney  returned,  Dr.  Allen  invited  him  to  meet 
Mr.  Weld  at  dinner,  advising  him  of  the  discussion  on 
slavery,  and  informing  him  that  he  should  now  turn  Mr. 
Weld  over  to  him.  Mr.  Birney  called  in  acknowledgment 
of  the  invitation.  The  impression  he  made  is  thus  de 
scribed  by  Mr.  Weld : 

At  this  first  sight  of  him,  that  blended  dignity,  courtesy,  and 
amenity,  so  characteristic  of  his  uniform  bearing,  was  its  own 
interpretation. 

The  same  day,  when  the  three  withdrew  to  the  parlor  after 
dinner,  your  father  said  in  substance  :  "Gentlemen,  I  learn  you 
have  been  having  a  week's  discussion  on  slavery,  and  that  I,  be 
ing  a  slave-holder,  am  expected  to  take  up  the  cudgel  upon  the 
side  of  slavery."  He  then  said  that,  before  declaring  his  side,  he 
"  must  know  how  both  sides  stand  in  the  discussion  thus  far  ;  so 
I  must  depend  upon  you  to  tell  me  what  points  have  been  made, 
how  supported,  how  refuted — in  a  word,  the  process  you  have 
gone  through  together  and  brought  the  question  up  to  its  present 


So  it  was  agreed  that  Mr.  Weld  should  restate  the 
arguments ;  which  he  doubtless  did  in  his  own  bright  and 
interesting  style.  Before  he  had  finished,  the  summons 
came  to  tea. 


108  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Meanwhile  [says  Mr.  Weld],  the  only  part  taken  by  your 
father  during  the  afternoon  was  to  ask  a  variety  of  questions 
touching  different  points  made  in  the  discussion.  The  manner 
and  spirit  in  which  these  questions  were  put  greatly  attracted 
me.  They  bespoke  the  utmost  candor,  a  simple,  earnest  intent 
in  pursuit  of  truth,  a  quick  conscience,  perfect  fairness — the 
traits  of  a  mind  that  could  not  l)e  partisan.  Indeed,  during 
the  whole  afternoon,  as  I  went  on  in  the  rehearsal  from  one  point 
to  another,  I  felt  assured  that  he  was  with  me,  head  and  heart, 
in  the  positions  which  I  had  taken  throughout. 

Mr.  Weld  judged  rightly.  He  had  given  eloquent  ex 
pression  to  the  deepest  convictions  of  his  hearer.  But 
Mr.  Birney  said  nothing  that  evening.  He  excused  him 
self  from  tea  and  retired,  after  inviting  Mr.  WTeld  to  dine 
with  him  next  day.  At  that  time  he  fully  indorsed  all 
Mr.  Weld  had  said,  and  declared  that  the  legal  right  of 
the  slave  holder  was  a  "  monstrous  moral  wrong." 

In  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Weld  a  few  days  later  he 
said  to  him :  "  I  shall  not  live  a  legal  slave-holder  any 
longer  than  till  I  can  devise  the  wisest  and  safest  way  of 
putting  my  slaves  in  legal  possession  of  themselves,  and 
making  such  provision  for  them  in  liberty  as  justice  and 
benevolence  require." 

This  is  the  testimony  of  the  only  surviving  witness  to 
these  conversations.  Taken  in  connection  with  the  facts 
heretofore  narrated  it  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  the 
motives  which  had  influenced  Mr.  Birney  for  several 
years.  One  other  fact  if  it  had  been  known  to  Mr.  Weld 
at  the  time  would  have  accounted  for  Mr.  Birney 's  guarded 
language  as  to  the  time  he  would  take  to  emancipate  his 
slaves.  Michael,  the  husband  and  father  of  the  family 
legally  owned  by  Mr.  Birney  and  who  had  been  brought 
up  with  him  from  boyhood,  had  been  unable  to  conquer 
his  appetite  for  strong  liquors,  and  needed  the  constant 
watchful  care  of  his  master  and  friend.  For  some  years 


VISIT  OF  THEODORE  D.  WELD.  1Q9 

the  probability  was  that  if  free  he  would  become  a  con 
firmed  drunkard  and  beggar  his  family.  The  children 
were  nearly  grown,  but  had  little  mental  capacity.  For 
years  Michael  had  understood  that  his  freedom  would  be 
restored  to  him  as  soon  as  he  could  control  his  love  of 
ardent  spirits.  My  father's  intention,  well  understood  by 
his  family,  was  to  take  Michael  and  his  children  to  Illinois; 
but  his  habitual  reticence  did  not  permit  him  to  speak  of 
those  matters  to  a  stranger. 

Henry  "Wilson,  in  his  "Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave 
Power  in  America,"  attributes  to  Mr.  Weld  the  "  conver 
sion  of  James  Gr.  Birney  to  anti-slavery  principles."  This 
is  flatly  contradicted  by  Mr.  Weld  in  a  letter  to  the  author, 
and  is  inconsistent  with  the  facts  of  Mr.  Birney's  life. 
The  error,  however,  has  been  repeated  until  it  is  accepted 
by  many  as  the  truth.  The  effect  of  the  profound  discus 
sions  by  Mr.  Weld  was  to  give  Mr.  Birney  a  deeper  in 
terest  in  the  subject  of  slavery  and  a  conviction  in  regard 
to  its  removal.  If  he  had  not  seen  Mr.  Weld,  he  would 
probably  have  removed  to  Illinois  before  the  end  of  the 
year  1832.  Having  seen  him,  he  was  in  a  state  of  mind 
favorable  to  the  acceptance  of  the  mission  offered  him  in 
July — to  operate  against  slavery — and  which  will  be  the 
subject  of  our  next  chapter.  Mr.  Weld's  visit  was  im 
portant  in  its  collateral  results,  and  as  laying  the  founda 
tion  of  a  life-long  friendship,  but  it  "  converted  "  Mr. 
Birney  to  nothing.  His  anti-slavery  principles  were  the 
organic  growth  of  a  lifetime,  not  a  sudden  revelation. 

A  second  accredited  theory  of  this  supposed  "  conver 
sion,"  the  conventional  sudden  change  of  heart  being  as 
sumed  as  indispensable,  is  that  Mr.  Birney  happened  to 
read  a  stray  copy  of  the  "  Liberator,"  and  that  the  random 
shaft  went  home.  With  reference  to  this,  the  author 
inquired  of  Mr.  Weld  whether,  in  his  conversations  in 
Alabama  with  Mr.  Birney,  any  allusion  was  made  by 


110  JAMES  G.  ,BIRNEY  AM)  HIS  TIMES. 

either  party  to  Mr.  (Garrison's  paper.  The  following  pas 
sage  in  J\lr.  Weld's  letter  quoted  from  above  is,  I  presume, 
his  answer  to  the  inquiry :  "  The  news  of  Mr.  Garrison's 
"  Liberator,"  though  started  some  months  before,  had  not 
yet  reached  Alabama.  Indeed  /  did  not  myself  hear  of  it 
until  my  return  £o  New  York  some  months  later."* 

While  it  is  certain  that  Mr.  Birney  had  never  seen  the 
little  Boston  paper,  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  he  had 
seen  the  "  Emancipator,"  published  in  1820,  at  Jonesbor- 
ough,  Tenn.,  by  Elihu  Embree  ;  the  "  Genius  of  Universal 
Emancipation,"  published  from  1821  to  1824,  at  Green 
ville,  Tenn.,  by  Benjamin  Lundy;  and  the  "Abolition 
Intelligencer,"  published  in  1822  and  1823.  But  his  very 
accurate  knowledge  of  slavery  was  the  fruit  of  personal 
observation  and  experience ;  and  his  repugnance  to  it 
grew  out  of  an  enlightened  conscience,  early  impressions, 
education  in  free  States,  a  strong  sentiment  of  justice, 
and  his  conviction  that  it  was  undermining  the  free  in 
stitutions  of  the  country  and  endangering  the  Union  of 
the  States. 

*  Seventeen  months ;  the  first  number  was  issued  January  1,  1831. 
Mr.  Weld  did  not  hear  of  the  "  Liberator  "  until  it  was  nearly  two  years 
old. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

EXPERIENCE  AS  AN  AGENT  OF  THE   COLONIZATION 
SOCIETY. 

1832-1833. 

IF  any  reader  has  taken  up  this  memoir  with  the  idea 
that  Mr.  Birney's  inspiration  to  work  against  slavery  was 
instantaneous  or  even  hurried,  that  he  had  the  divine 
afflatus  of  one  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  or  even  imagined 
himself  specially  commissioned  of  God  for  any  purpose, 
he  has  probably  been  stripped  of  his  illusions  by  this  nar 
rative.  Mr.  Birney  was  a  man  of  his  time  and  place ;  not 
superior  to  the  limitations  that  restrain  men  generally, 
susceptible  to  social  influences,  bound  to  the  South  by 
the  ties  of  birth  and  kindred,  and  devoted  to  his  native 
and  adopted  States.  In  his  early  liberalism  on  the  subject 
of  slavery  he  did  not  differ  from  very  many  of  the  lead 
ing  men  of  Kentucky  or  from  many  of  the  most  intelli 
gent  citizens  of  Alabama  prior  to  the  reign  of  Jackson. 
That  he  always  desired  the  extinction  of  slavery  is  prob 
able  ;  that  he  did  so  in  1826  rests  on  his  own  testimony.* 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  the  names  of  the  Ala- 
bamians  who  shared  his  anti-slavery  views  and  who  co 
operated  with  him  in  obtaining  the  restrictions  on  slavery 
enacted  in  1819,  1827,  and  1832 ;  but,  in  the  lapse  of  time, 
the  materials  for  the  statement  of  them  have  perished  or 

*  See  his  letter  on  Colonization. 


112  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

are  inaccessible.  Mr.  Birney  was  a  ver^-practical  .man-as 
well  as  a  sincere  Christian.  He  was  prudent  as  well  as 
bold,  having  regard  to  possibilities  as  well  as  to  theories, 
and  never  forgetting  common  sense  in  favor  of  radical 
abstractions.  At^the  time  we  have  reached  his  abhorrence 
of  slavery  was  banishing  him  from  his  native  South,  but 
he  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  the  horrors  he  thought 
would  follow  the  general  immediate  abolition  of  slavery. 
To  him,  as  to  most  Southerners,  it  appeared  to  involve 
social  convulsions,  the  overthrow  of  civilization  in  the 
South,  and  the  substitution  of  immorality  and  barbarism. 
His  sentiment  on  these  subjects  is  the  key  to  his  course 
in  1832. 

His  preparations  for  removal  to  Illinois  had  occasioned 
very  vigorous  protests  from  his  friends  at  Huntsville, 
which,  however,  did  not  cause  him  to  hesitate.  Early  in 
July  he  was  greatly  surprised  at  receiving  an  appointment 
as  an  agent  of  the  Colonization  Society.  His  district  was 
to  include  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana, 
and  Arkansas.  His  acceptance  was  urged  in  a  highly 
complimentary  letter  from  Rev.  R.  R.  Gurley,  who,  among 
other  kind  expressions,  had  termed  him  "  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  lawyers  in  the  South."  Mr.  Birney  answered 
it  in  a  long  letter,*  dated  Huntsville,  Ala.,  July  12,  1832. 
Some  extracts  will  interest  the  reader : 

The  call  given  by  your  society,  to  all  appearance  providential, 
added  to  the  earnest  resistance  of  my  most  esteemed  religious 
friends  to  my  project  of  removing  from  among  them,  has  really 
staggered  me  not  a  little. 

The  above  passage  contains  perhaps  the  only  indica 
tion  of  a  belief  on  Mr.  Birney's  part  in  the  doctrine  of 
special  providences.  Such  an  offer,  coming  unsolicited 

*  The  originals  of  this,  and  several  other  letters  from  J.  G.  Birney  to 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Gurley,  have  been  kindly  placed  in  my  hands. 


AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       H3 

and  unexpected  at  the  only  time  in  his  life  when  he  would 
have  considered  it,  would  have  shaken  the  unbelief  of  the 
most  incredulous.  He  had  delayed  his  answer  several 
days,  for  two  reasons :  First,  to  receive  a  pamphlet  which 
Mr.  Gurley  had  promised  to  send — 

the  last  annual  report  of  the  society,  after  the  perusal  of  which  I 
would  be  better  informed  as  to  its  true  condition  and  the  pos 
sibility  of  my  being  able  to  render  essential  service  as  an  agent. 

He  tells  Mr.  Gurley  he  has  not  yet  decided  to  accept, 
and  that  there  is  one  obstacle  to  his  doing  so — 

which  I  fear  will  be  almost  insurmountable.  I  mean  the  ne 
cessity  which  will  be  imposed  upon  me  as  agent  to  be  absent 
from  home,  and,  of  course,  prevented  from  giving  any  attention 
to  the  education  of  my  children  for  such  long  periods.  I  appre 
hend  that  if  I  neglect  the  duty  of  educating  my  children,  .  .  . 
as  I  must  necessarily  do  by  annual  absences  from  home  of  five  or 
six  consecutive  months,  the  taking  upon  myself  of  the  agency 
offered  would  no  longer  be  a  duty. 

He  writes  of  his  having  advertised  his  property  for  sale, 
"  with  a  determination  to  leave  the  State,"  and  gives  the 
reason  as  follows : 

I  had  become  so  fully  convinced  of  the  corrupting  influences 
of  slavery  on  the  character  of  the  young  among  us,  especially 
those  of  our  sex  (and  six  of  my  seven  children  are  boys),  that  al 
though  born  in  Kentucky  and  always  commanding  the  services 
of  slaves,  I  had  visited  Illinois  and  decided  to  remove  there. 

Of  the  salary  offered  him,  he  says : 

The  compensation  proposed,  though  very  far  inferior  to  my 
professional  gains,  is  liberal.  No  one  who  would  in  the  present 
circumstances  of  the  society  ask  more  would  be  morally  qualified 
for  so  great  a  work  as  would  devolve  upon  your  agent.  His  com 
manding  motive  must  be  to  do  good,  because  it  is  the  will  of  God, 
or  he  will  be  comparatively  unsuccessful. 

As  his  acceptance  will  be  a  matter  of  great  moment  to 


114:  JAMES  a.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

him  and  his  family,  he  wishes  to  have  a  clear  understand 
ing  of  all  that  will  be  expected  of  him  ;  and  he,  therefore, 
asks  full  answers  to  ten  questions.  Most  of  these  are  not 
now  of  interest.  The  first  is  as  follows : 

1.  Say,  I  spend  each  year  from  three  to  four  months  continu 
ously  in  the  Southern  and  Southwestern  portions  of  the  district, 
attending  Legislatures,  conferences,  synods,  etc.,  of  ecclesiastical 
bodies,  the  rest  of  the  year  in  the  northern  part  of  the  State  and 
in  the  Tennessee  Valley,  where  I  think  much  may  he  done  ;  and  in 
the  State  of  Tennessee,  say  within  one  hundred  miles  of  this 
place,  the  excursions  to  be  for  ten,  fifteen,  and  twenty  days,  with 
opportunities  for  frequently  being  at  home  for  short  periods — 
would  this  be  a  compliance,  etc.,  with  the  society's  rules  respect 
ing  its  agents  ? 

The  fifth  is  as  follows : 

5.  How  will  the  society  expect  its  agents  to  travel  ?  In  the 
cheapest  practicable  manner,  or  by  the  ordinary  modes  of  con 
veyance,  such  as  steamboats,  stages,  etc.  ?  My  own  opinion  is 
that  in  the  South  he  must  travel  as  any  gentleman  in  good  cir 
cumstances  would  do  not  employed  on  an  agency.  He  must  not 
be  placed  in  the  attitude  of  one  rendering  thanks  for  what  the 
community  may  do  favorable  to  the  society,  but  rather  to  receive 
thanks  from  the  community. 

He  asks  to  have  sent  to  him  all  the  annual  reports,  the 
proposed  history  of  the  society,  the  names  of  its  members, 
the  opinions  of  distinguished  men  about  it,  some  missing 
numbers  of  his  set  of  the  "  African  Depository,"  and  other 
documents.  He  wants  time  at  the  next  two  or  three  terms 
of  court  to  wind  up  such  law  business  as  he  could  not 
transfer ;  and  time  to  study  his  subject  fully.  He  wishes 
to  make  complete  preparation,  believing  that  an  agent 
"  should  be  possessed  of  all  the  material  facts  in  relation 
to  the  whole  scheme  of  colonization,  and  have  them  so 
authenticated  as  to  place  their  genuineness  beyond  all  man 
ner  of  doubt  in  the  minds  of  those  upon  whom  he  is  to  act." 


V          AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       H5 

He  is  evidently  inclined  to  accept,  but  wishes  to  have 
all  the  light  possible  on  the  subject ;  and  he  reserves  his 
decision.  Toward  the  close  he  mentions  difficulties,  but 
adds,  in  his  great-hearted  sanguineness  :  "  And  yet  I  can 
not  but  believe  that,  with  prudence  and  diligence,  the 
public  mind  in  the  South  may  be  awakened  to  some 
mighty  effort." 

He  touches  again  upon  the  bright  outlook  in  a  part  of 
the  district : 

In  the  Valley  of  the  Tennessee  [he  says]  there  is,  among  many 
professors  of  Christianity,  no  small  feeling  as  to  their  duty  to  put 
their  slaves  in  a  way  of  final  emancipation,  with  a  view  of  send 
ing  them  to  Liberia.  Their  consciences  are  too  much  awakened 
again  to  sleep  without  some  action. 

On  the  26th  of  July  Mr.  Gurley  wrote  to  Mr.  Birney 
an  answer  to  his  inquiries  of  the  12th,  and  inclosing  a 
commission  to  him  as  agent  of  the  American  Colonization 
Society  for  the  Southwestern  District.  This  letter  was 
held  under  advisement  until  the  23d  of  August,  Mr.  Bir 
ney  wishing  to  consider  "  the  matter  calmly,  dispassion 
ately,  and  in  all  its  aspects,"  before  making  a  decision 
which  would  involve  so  great  a  change  to  himself  and  his 
large  family.  He^thenjiccepted.  He  writes : 

I  am  now  engaged  in  preparing  myself  for  active  operations 
by  a  careful  study  of  the  whole  subject.  .  .  .  Facts  are  the  strong 

weapons,  and  they  will,  if  properly  presented,  command  success 

Fine  speeches,  embracing  generalities  only,  may  do  well  enough 
for  an  anniversary  meeting,  to  attract  admiration  to  the  speaker, 
but,  in  my  humble  judgment,  there  must  be  facts,  the  whole  in 
the  cause,  authenticated  beyond  all  controversy,  and  exhibited 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  show  the  entire  practicability  of  the 
scheme  and  its  good  effects  upon  all  parties  concerned,  before 
men  will  be  moved  in  masses  to  intelligent  and  persevering  action 
in  its  favor. 

The  first  step  that  should  be  taken  in  this  district,  where 


116  JAMES  G.  B1KNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

jealousy  of  the  society  exists,  from  an  apprehension  that  its  ob 
ject  is  an  interference  with  the  rights  of  property,  is  to  gain  the 
good-will,  at  least,  of  the  Legislatures.  This  being  done,  the 
agent  will  not  be  looked  upon  in  the  country  as  "raw  head  and 
bloody  bones,"  and  all  undue  fear  of  his  influence  upon  the  slaves 
will  be  removed. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that,  although  the  Coloniza 
tion  Sqciety  had  been  welcomed  by  many  of  the  leading 
men  in  the  border  slave  States,  it  was  viewed  with  sus 
picion  and  alarm  by  the  planters  in  the  "  cotton  belt," 
and  had  gained  no  substantial  foothold  in  the  States  of 
the  "  far  South."  The  letter  continues  : 

I  have  sketched  out  for  myself  the  following  plan :  Attend 
the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  of  Mississippi,  at  Jackson,  early 
in  November ;  thence  to  New  Orleans,  for  the  purpose  of  address 
ing  the  Legislature  of  Louisiana,  ...  to  superintend  there  the 
contemplated  expedition  to  Liberia  ;  thence  to  Tuscaloosa,  to 
operate,  if  possible,  upon  the  Legislature  of  this  State. 

I  deem  it  altogether  important  that  the  subject  be  first  fully 
discussed  before  these  bodies  before  it  is  introduced  elsewhere 
among  the  people,  unless  very  peculiar  and  favorable  circum 
stances  should  call  for  a  different  course.  To  make  a  favorable 
impression  upon  the  Legislature  of  Louisiana  and  upon  the  popu 
lation  of  New  Orleans,  in  which  I  include  the  planters  upon  the 
coast  of  the  Mississippi,  I  consider  a  matter  of  prime  importance. 
****** 

The  chief  points  in  the  lower  part  of  this  State  are  Tusca 
loosa,  Montgomery,  Claiborne,  and  Mobile.  The  State  society, 
established  in  1829-30  by  Mr.  Polk,  has  gone  entirely  to  decay  -, 
but  I  doubt  not  it  can  be  revived.  In  the  other  places  mentioned 
I  shall  endeavor  to  establish  societies  on  my  first  visit.  It  is  my 
intention,  at  present,  to  return  to  Huntsville,  after  visiting  these 
several  points  in  this  State,  and  visit  all  the  points  on  and  near 
the  Mississippi  River,  in  January,  February,  and  March.  I  will 
leave  for  summer  operations  East  Tennessee  and  that  portion  of 
West  Tennessee  which  can  not  be  conveniently  penetrated  by 
steamboats.  .  .  .  The  society  in  this  place,  considered  by  me  one 


AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       H7 

of  the  most  important  in  the  whole  region,  has  been  recently  in 
rather  a  languid  condition.  ...  I  received  all  the  pamphlets  you 
sent  me,  except  Mr.  Carey's;  it  had  doubtless  miscarried.  .  .  . 
Is  not  Mr.  Carey  a  Roman  Catholic  ?  also  Mr.  Walsh,  of  the 
''American  Quarterly  "  ?  Tell  me  the  names  of  any  other  distin 
guished  Catholics  who  are  friendly  to  the  society.  .  .  .  Where 
will  I  find  any  approving  resolutions  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal, 
of  the  Baptist,  the  Unitarian,  the  Roman  Catholic  Churches  ?  I 
want,  if  there  be  any  such,  the  time,  place,  and  very  words  of  them. 

He  asks  for  information  about  opinion  in  Charleston 
for  the  latest  publications  on  the  subject,  and  for  facts 
with  which  to  answer  objections  commonly  made  in  the 
South. 

The  letter  next  in  order  of  time  which  has  been  pre 
served  bears  date  October  13,  1832.  Mr.  Birney  had  vis 
ited  Tennessee  and  lectured  in  three  different  towns.  The 
chief  object  of  the  letter  appears  to  have  been  to  ask  an 
explanation  of  a  discrepancy  in  the  statements  of  an  im 
portant  fact.  Mathew  Carey,  whose  pamphlet,  published 
by  the  society,  he  had  just  received,  stated  the  number  of 
colonists  sent  to  Liberia  as  two  thousand,  and  the  mana 
ger,  in  a  recent  address  to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
had  stated  it  at  a  much  larger  figure.  He  says  : 

Statements  on  important  points  varying  so  essentially  and 
made  in  publications  favorable  to  the  society,  produce  much  em 
barrassment  in  the  mind  of  one  desirous  to  impart  precise  infor 
mation.  In  the  estimates  which  I  have  made  in  some  addresses 
which  I  have  lately  delivered,  taking  for  their  basis  the  docu 
ments  above  mentioned,  the  whole  number  of  the  colonists,  in 
clusive  of  those  sent  out  by  the  society,  those  restored  to  Africa 
by  the  Government,  the  natural  increase,  and  those  sent  out  in 
the  expeditions  since  June,  has  been  set  down  at  three  thousand. 
Is  this  within  the  bounds  of  the  truth  ?  If  it  be  not,  I  desire  to 
correct  it,  believing  that  our  cause  will,  in  the  long  run,  be  in 
jured  just  in  proportion  as  the  statements  made  in  its  favor  are 
unsupported  by  facts. 


118  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

He  remits  moneys  collected,  states  that  the  Coloniza 
tion  Society  of  Huntsville  had  appointed  a  committee  to 
draught  a  memorial  to  our  Legislature  on  the  subject  of 
the  emancipation  laws  of  the  State,  and  adds : 

The  weight  of  responsibility  which  the  society  at  Washing 
ton,  by  leaving  almost  everything  to  my  own  discretion,  has 
thrown  upon  me,  I  feel  to  be  very  great.  ...  I  will  within  this 
month  visit  the  principal  places  in  the  Tennessee  Valley. 

The  reader  will  have  noticed  that  between  the  dates  of 
his  letters  of  August  and  October  Mr.  Birney  has  modi 
fied  his  plan  of  operations.  He  had  intended  to  go  south 
ward  in  the  first  place,  reserving  Tennessee  for  his  work 
during  the  next  summer ;  but,  on  more  full  information, 
he  has  already  lectured  in  several  towns  in  Tennessee,  and 
now  proposes  to  visit  the  valley  before  any  other  part  of 
his  district.  In  the  States  north  of  Alabama  a  good  re 
ception  had  been  generally  given  to  the  advocates  of  col 
onization  ;  but  sixteen  years  of  effort  had  failed  to  remove 
the  coldness  or  allay  the  irritable  jealousy  toward  them  in 
the  States  of  the  "  Cotton  Belt."  To  employ  a  native  of 
the  South,  a  man  of  good  reputation  and  social  standing 
to  present  the  cause  was  the  last,  the  only  resort.  If  that 
failed  the  cause  was  desperate.  To  influence  the  South  it 
was  important  to  ship  many  emigrants  from  New  Orleans 
in  the  spring  expedition.  Mr.  Birney  thought  he  could 
secure  them  in  Tennessee. 

The  letters  written  by  him  from  Tennessee  on  his 
visit  to  that  State  in  the  autumn  of  1832  have  not  been 
preserved.  That  he  was  successful  in  securing  a  num 
ber  of  emigrants  for  the  intended  expedition  from  New 
Orleans  in  April  will  appear  hereafter.  From  Tennessee 
he  returned  to  Huntsville.  Thence  he  went  to  Tusca- 
loosa  and  Montgomery.  His  letters  from  those  places 
are  missing,  but  from  a  statement  in  one  of  December 


AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       H9 

21st,  from  Mobile,  we  learn  that  at  each  of  the  three 
places  he  answered  objections  made  to  the  society,  particu 
larly  "  the  SoutJiern  objections,  that  the  American  Coloni 
zation  Society  is  a  Northern  institution,  set  on  foot  by 
fanatics,  etc. ;  that  the  subject  ought  not  to  be  discussed 
in  the  slave  States ;  and  that  it  has  a  tendency  to  produce 
a  restless  and  agitated  state  of  feeling  among  the  slaves, 
etc."  But  the  subject  was  one  the  discussion  of  which 
was  not  favored  by  the  public.  He  writes  that  at  his  first 
meeting,  Mobile,  December  18th  :  "  Quite  a  small  audi 
ence  collected  at  the  appointed  time  in  one  of  the 
churches." 

He  was  heard  respectfully.  At  the  close  of  the  lecture 
some  intelligent  persons  expressed  their  "great  satisfac 
tion  at  my  manner  of  treating  the  subject."  The  subject 
itself,  however,  seemed  to  have  no  friends.  A  second 
meeting,  appointed  at  the  same  place  for  the  next  evening, 
was  attended  by  so  very  few  that  he  did  not  speak.  A 
third  meeting  was  also  a  failure,  and  he  abandoned  his 
intention  to  take  up  a  collection  and  form  an  auxiliary  to 
the  State  society.  In  his  letter  he  admits  that  "  appear 
ances  here  and  all  through  the  southern  portions  of  this 
State  3re  gloomy." 

I  shall  leave  this  place  to-day  on  my  return  to  Tuscaloosa  and 
Huntsville.  I  scarcely  know  what  opinion  I  could  give  on  the 
subject  of  keeping  up  an  agency  in  this  district,  or  of  making 
far  the  present  any  additional  effort.  Should  Virginia  act  with 
efficiency  at  the  session  of  her  Legislature  now  holding,  it  would  - 
be  a  fact  strongly  tending  to  excite  this  State  to  some  similar 
course.  There  is,  however,  a  deadness  to  the  subject  of  African 
colonization  in  this  portion  of  Alabama  which  is  altogether  dis 
couraging.  I  think  something  beneficial  may  be  done  in  Ten 
nessee.  ...  In  counties  where  slave  labor  is  valuable,  it  requires 
benevolence  to  keep  up  our  cause — Christian  benevolence,  the 
stock  of  which  is  exceedingly  small  all  through  this  region.  It 
was  my  intention  to  be  in  New  Orleans  during  the  session  of  the 


120  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Louisiana  Legislature  this  winter,  but  I  am  now  doubtful  whether 
such  a  visit  would  be  useful. 

The  next  letter  is  under  date  of  "  Huntsville,  January, 
24,  1833."  He  details  the  steps  he  has  taken  to  have  em 
igrants  for  Liberia  aided  to  reach  New  Orleans  in  time 
for  the  April  expedition  ;  *  and  continues  : 

I  have  read  with  much  satisfaction  the  article  written  by  Mr. 
Harrison  on  the  slavery  question  in  Virginia.  (See  3  Afric.  Repos. ,  t 
193.)  It  will,  I  apprehend,  have  a  strong  tendency  to  counteract 
the  one-sided  statements  and  the  very  unfair  arguments  of  Mr. 
Dew.  I  am  pleased  to  see  the  whole  question  concerning  the 
black  population  of  our  country  exciting  so  strong  an  interest 
and  provoking  such  learned  discussion.  It  will  eventuate,  I 
trust,  in  something  favorable  to  the  cause  of  humanity,  and,  of 
course,  to  the  true  honor  and  strength  of  our  country. 

He  announces  his  intention  to  leave  next  week  for  New 
Orleans,  taking  steamboat  at  Florence,  and  going  via  the 
Tennessee,  Ohio,  and  Mississippi  Rivers.  He  expresses  a 
wish  to  visit  St.  Louis,  and  Jacksonville,  Illinois,  stating 
that  he  has  not  abandoned  his  intention  "  to  remove  to 
Illinois,  that  I  might  rid  myself  and  my  posterity  of  the 
curse  of  slavery." 

My  mind  is  ill  at  ease  on  the  subject  of  retaining  my  fellow- 
creatures  in  servitude.  I  can  not,  nor  do  I  believe  any  honest 
mind,  can  reconcile  the  precept  "Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself  " 

*  Before  he  left  for  New  Orleans,  he  did  propose  to  his  slaves  to 
send  them  with  the  expedition  ;  but  they  all  refused  absolutely,  being 
much  frightened  at  the  proposition. 

f  An  able  defense  of  the  Colonization  Society,  delivered  at  Lynch- 
burg,  July,  1827.  One  passage  is  noteworthy: 

"  The  scope  of  the  society  is  large  enough ;  but  it  is  in  no  wise 
mingled  or  confounded  with  the  broad,  sweeping  views  of  a  few  fanatics 
in  America  who  would  urge  us  on  to  the  sudden  and  total  abolition  of 
slavery"  This  arrow  is  aimed  at  Osborn,  Lundy,  Duncan,  Rankin, 
Bourne,  ct  al. 


AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       121 

with  the  purchase  of  the  body  of  that  neighbor  and  consigning 
him  and  his  unoffending  posterity  to  slavery,  a  perpetual  bond 
age,  degrading  and  debasing  him  in  this  world,  and  almost  ex 
cluding  him  from  the  happiness  of  that  which  is  to  come.  Should 
I  remove  from  this  State,  I  shall  send  all  the  slaves  I  own  to 
Liberia. 

He  proceeds  to  suggest  the  discussion  of  the  "  duty  of 
Christians  in  regard  to  slavery,"  before  the  ecclesiastical 
bodies  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  He  says : 

Could  the  Christian  community,  or  even  a  respectable  part  of 
it,  be  aroused  to  what,  I  believe — nay,  to  what  I  know — to  be 
their  duty  in  this  matter,  one  might  almost  say  of  this  great 
work  of  humanity,  "It  is  finished." 

He  adds : 

If  I  do  [visit  Illinois  this'  spring]  my  object  will  be  to  make 
preparations  for  a  removal — perhaps,  within  a  year.  ...  I 
am  anxious  to  have  an  opportunity  of  discussing  it  [colonization] 
before  the  Legislature  [of  Louisiana]. 

His  next  letter  is  from  New  Orleans,  under  date  of 
March  18, 1833.  His  proposition  to  call  a  public  meeting 
was  discouraged  as  injudicious  by  the  president  of  the 
State  Colonization  Society,  who  represented  the  state  of 
public  sentiment  as  unfavorable.  The  society  had  held 
no  meeting  since  its  first  organization,  had  appointed  no 
executive  committee,  and  collected  no  funds.  He  suc 
ceeded  at  length  in  holding  a  meeting,  Sunday  evening,  in 
Mr.  Clapp's  church.  A  large  congregation  assembled,  and 
listened  in  a  respectful  and  attentive  manner. 

The  blacks,  both  free  and  slave,  were  permitted  to  be  present. 
But  I  could  not  rouse  the  society  into  action,  although  there 
seemed  to  be,  without  exception,  individual  approbation  of  what 
had  been  said.  .  .  .  The  president  of  the  society  was  present 
at  neither  of  the  addresses.  ...  I  am  much  afraid  that  our 
cause  will  languish  unto  death  here.  I  know  not  what  to  do  to 


122  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

revive  it.  ...  They  are  most  deplorably  inert.  ...  I 
shall  leave  to-morrow  for  Natchez,  where  also,  I  fear,  things  are 
in  a  languishing  state,  as  I  have  been  informed  an  unsuccessful 
attempt  has  been  made  to  secure  [a  hall  for]  the  regular  annual 
meeting  of  the  society  at  that  place. 

Of  the  prospect  at  New  Orleans,  he  says :  "  It  is 
gloomy  enough,  yet  not  so  much  so  as  to  unnerve  us  alto 
gether." 

Under  date  of  "  New  Orleans,  April  8,  1833,"  he  gives 
an  account  of  his  trip  to  Natchez  and  Port  Gibson,  and  of 
his  lectures  at  those  places.  The  Natchez  society  was  in 
good  hands  and  prosperous ;  it  had  sixteen  hundred  dollars 
in  its  treasury.  He  spoke  twice  on  Sunday — in  the  after 
noon,  in  the  Presbyterian  church,  to  a  good  audience; 
and  in  the  evening,  in  the  Methodist  church,  to  a  very 
large  one.  The  result  was  collections  amounting  to  four 
teen  hundred  dollars.  The  meeting  at  Port  Gibson  was 
not  large,  owing  to  heavy  rains.  The  collections  amounted 
to  about  sixty  dollars.  He  then  hastened  to  New  Orleans, 
met  there  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  emigrants  bound 
to  Liberia,  and  chartered  a  vessel  for  their  transportation. 
He  writes  :  "  I  am  making  great  exertions  to  attract  public 
attention  to  the  sailing  of  this  expedition  ;  but  the  apathy 
here  upon  the  subject  of  colonization  is  almost  discourag- 
ing." 

In  a  long  letter  of  April  13,  1833,  full  of  suggestions 
and  business  details,  he  writes  : 

I  have  determined  on  returning  to  Huntsville  immediately 
after  dispatching  the  pending  expedition,  and  on  publishing  in 
our  "Gazette,"  in  weekly  numbers  of  a  column  or  two  thirds  of 
a  column  each,  the  views  I  have  generally  presented  in  my  public 
addresses.  I  trust  that  arrangements  can  be  made  for  their  re- 
publication  throughout  all  my  district. 

These  essays  he  expects  to  issue  in  pamphlet  form  for 
circulation  among  members  of  the  different  State  Legis- 


AGENT  OP  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       123 

latnres,  "  bodies  from  which  alone  in  the  South  any  effect 
ual  aid  can  be  expected." 

It  is  evident  he  has  already  given  up  all  hope  of  suc 
cess  from  the  action  of  societies  formed  at  the  South. 
Under  date  of  April  15,  1833,  he  expresses  the  opinion — 

that  the  remarks  contained  in  the  latter  part  of  Mr.  Finley's 
address  at  the  last  anniversary  will  do  injury  to  our  cause  at  the 
South.  ...  To  call  the  slave-holders — even  that  class  of  them 
who  are  willing  to  perpetuate  the  odious  relation  which  my  soul 
hates — indeed,  to  call  any  description  of  persons  who  may  be 
opposed  to  us  enemies,  to  treat  them  as  such  by  hard  names,  to 
push  them  into  the  ranks  of  an  unrelenting  opposition,  is  not,  in 
my  judgment,  calculated  to  promote  our  success.  Rather  let  us, 
as  those  are  wont  to  do  who  are  conscious  of  having  a  good  cause, 
try  to  convince  opposers  by  forbearance  and  kindness  and  sober 
argument  that  they  are  wrong,  and  thus  persuade  them  to  be 
come  our  friends  and  co-operators. 

April  20th* — The  brig  Ajax,  with  one  hundred  and 
fifty  emigrants,  dropped  down  the  river.  She  sailed  April 
22d.  On  the  day  last  named,  Sunday,  an  afternoon  meet 
ing  at  Mr.  Clapp's  church,  for  which  Mr.  Birney  had  made 
all  the  necessary  arrangements,  gaining  the  promise  of 
three  distinguished  gentlemen  to  speak,  advertising  it  by 
placards  and  in  the  newspapers,  "  failed  utterly."  "  The 
gentleman  who  was  to  submit  the  first  resolution "  was 
absent.  "  The  other  two  who  were  to  introduce  the  sec 
ond  and  third  resolutions  declined  going  on  with  the  ad 
dresses."  He  thinks  that  "  but  little  must  be  asked  in  the 
way  of  personal  effort "  from  professed  colonizationists  at 
New  Orleans.  There  is  no  popularity  to  be  obtained  by 
openly  espousing  the  cause  of  colonization."  But  "  in  the 
older  parts  of  Mississippi  there  is  a  better  spirit  in  all 
benevolent  things  than  in  this  region." 

The  cholera  broke  out  on  the  steamboat  on  which  he 
took  passage  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tennessee.  "  The  boat," 


124:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

he  says,  "  was  like  a  hospital  for  cholera  patients."  Reach 
ing  Huntsville  early  in  May,  he  began  the  preparation  of 
his  essays  on  colonization,  intended  for  republication  in 
the  Southern  newspapers.  This  work  was  interrupted  by 
a  trip  to  Kentucky  between  the  5th  and  2Gth  of  June, 
intended  to  establish  "  entire  co-operation  "  between  the 
Kentucky  Colonization  Society  and  those  of  his  district. 
All  public  meetings  in  that  State  were  prevented  by  the 
sudden  prevalence  of  cholera.  Returning  through  Xash- 
ville,  he  took  steps  there  to  secure  the  circulation  by  all 
the  colonization  societies  in  Tennessee  of  petitions  to  the 
State  Legislature  for  pecuniary  aid,  and  engaged  to  attend 
the  anniversary  of  the  State  society  to  be  held  in  October 
at  Xashville  during  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature.  On 
this  trip  he  made  a  short  visit  to  his  father,  and  for  this 
reason  declined  to  charge  to  the  society  any  part  of  his 
traveling  expenses.* 

In  a  letter  of  June  29, 1833,  he  makes  a  suggestion  for 
the  consideration  of  the  board  of  managers.  The  follow 
ing  extracts  will  show  its  character : 


o 


Proposition :  Our  great  object  is  to  call  into  effect  the  pmrers  of 
the  nation.  How  can  this  most  surely  le  done  ?  We  have  been  try 
ing  it  since  the  first  institution  of  the  Colonization  Society  with 
out  success,  by  appealing  directly  to  Congress.  .  .  .  We  have 
always  met  with  defeat,  and  we  have  always  roused  Southern 
prejudice.  Shall  we  go  on  in  the  same  way  ? 

The  chief  cause  of  the  defeat,  he  thinks,  is  that  the 
method  pursued  has  excited  "  jealousy  and  suspicions  of  a 
settled  intention  to  force  Congress  to  legislate  upon  a  sub 
ject  which  the  South  has  declared  must  remain  untouched 
by  national  legislation."  lie  advises  ceasing  the  direct 
application  to  Congress  : 

*  Though  he  passed  through  Lexington,  his  letters  make  no  mention 
of  any  visit  to  Henry  Clay. 


AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       125 

We  may  then  press  upon  the  individual  States  to  make  appro 
priations.  We  may,  when  we  have  their  full  confidence,  excite 
them  to  exertion  singly  ;  and  having  their  good  will,  if  their  own 
resources  should  be  insufficient,  they  will  be  the  very  organs  of 
carrying  their  and  our  wishes  before  Congress,  and  of  pressing 
upon  it  for  assistance  to  accomplish  them.  ...  I  verily  believe 
this  is  the  speediest  way  of  reaching  Congress  successfully,  and 
the  best  for  doing  service  to  our  country  whose  safety  is  now 
jeoparded,  if  I  mistake  not,  by  the  indiscretion  and  fury  of 
Northern  abolitionists  and  the  (plots)  of  Southern  nuttifiers.  .  .  . 
I  have  been  heretofore  always  in  favor  of  applications  to  Con 
gress  ;  I  am  now  satisfied  I  was  wrong.  Sir,  this  Union  is 
precious  to  me.  If  it  be  destroyed  the  world  may  mourn,  for  its 
liberty  is  lost. 

On  the  oth  of  August  he  writes  to  Mr.  Gurley  : 
Yet  sometimes  I  fear  that  the  South  will  do  nothing  until  it 
is  too  late,  as  it  will  be  in  ten  years  from  this. 

About  the  same  date  he  began  the  publication  in  the 
"  Huntsville  Democrat  "  of  a  series  of 


on!  The  editor  of  that  sheet  said  in  intro 
ducing  them  :  "  We  give  place  to  the  communications  of 
our  respected  fellow-citizen  James  G.  Birney,  Esq.,  with 
great  pleasure.  It  is  a  subject  upon  which  it  becomes 
every  man  to  form  an  opinion,  and  the  materials  for 
forming  a  correct  one  can  nowhere  be  found  in  a  more 
agreeable  form  than  they  will  be  made  to  assume  in  the 
short  essays  of  Mr.  Birney." 

The  general  drift  of  these  essays  is  apparent  in  the  fol 
lowing  extracts  : 

They  saw  their  countrv  suffering  under  an  evil  proved  by  in 
disputable  testimony  coming  from  all  parts  of  it  to  be  great.  .  .  . 
Our  country,  especially  that  portion  known  as  the  slave-holding 
States,  is  laboring  under  a  '  '  great  and  growing  moral  and  po 
litical  disease." 

To  the  objection  that  the  plan  originated  in  the  free 
States,  he  answers  : 


126  AMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

Shall  prejudice  so  narrow  as  this  persuade  us  to  lay  aside  a 
scheme  salutary  and  profitable  in  itself  because  its  inventors  have, 
by  the  providence  of  God,  their  places  of  residence  in  the  North 
or  East  ?  Heretofore  we  have  acted  a  wiser  part  ;  we  did  not 
say  to  Whitney,  the  ingenious  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin,  "  You 
are  from  the  laud  of  steady  habits." 

lie  admits  that  the  abolitionists  are  "  found  almost 
exclusively  in  the  free  States,"  but  claims  that  the  leading 
ones  are  hostile  to  colonization.  In  proof  he  cites  the 
charges  made  by  Mr.  Garrison  against  the  society  in  his 
"  Thoughts  on  Colonization,"  and  quotes  from  the  review 
of  that  pamphlet  in  the  June  number,  1832,  of  the  quar 
terly  "  Christian  Spectator." 

In  his  fourth  number  he  refers  to  "a  more  recent 
review  "  in  the  "  Spectator  "  "  of  the  rhapsodies  of  Mr. 
Garrison,"  etc.,  and  makes  a  quotation  from  it.* 

In  his  fifth  he  says : 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  to  furnish  the  owner,  in  the  good  con 
duct  of  the  slave,  every  motive  to  feel  benevolently  toward  him, 

*  In  the  number  for  January,  18:->3,  of  the  "African  Repository," 
which  paper  Mr.  Birney  read,  Rev.  Mr.  Gurley  replies  to  an  article  in  the 
"  Liberator."  We  make  a  few  extracts : 

"lie"  (Mr.  Garrison)  "states  that,  in  June  last,  in  Philadelphia,  he 
put  a  copy  of  his  '  Thoughts '  into  my  hand,  and  that  '  a  review  of  it  was 
then  promised — a  triumphant,  destructive  review  ' — and  exclaims : 
'After  six  months,  behold  the  result ! '  It  is  true  that  Mr.  Garrison  very 
obligingly  presented  me  with  his  book ;  but  in  regard  to  the  other  part 
of  the  statement,  I  apprehend  he  has  been  indebted  (as  I  fear  he  is  in 
some  other  cases)  to  his  imagination  for  his  fact.  .  .  .  Mr.  Garrison  pro 
nounces  the  charge  that  he  vilifies  the  South  totally  false."  Mr.  Gurley 
says :  "  Having  selected  certain  passages  from  the  writings  of  such  men 
as  Messrs.  Clay,  Harper,  Mercer,  Harrison,  of  Virginia,  Rev.  Dr.  Cald- 
wcll,  of  Xorth  Carolina,  and  others,  he  exclaims  :  '  Ye  crafty  calculators  ! 
Ye  hard-hearted,  incorrigible  sinners  !  Ye  greedy  and  relentless  rob 
bers  !  Ye  contemners  of  justice  and  mercy !  Ye  trembling,  pitiful,  pale- 
faced  usurpers,  my  soul  spurns  you  with  unspeakable  disgust ! ' " 
("  Thoughts,"  p.  107.) 


AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       127 

to  treat  him  kindly,  and  at  last  to  let  him  go  free,  bestowing 
upon  him  a  share  of  that  "wherewith  the  Lord  his  God  has 
blessed  "  the  master — if,  I  say,  this  be  to  favor  emancipation,  the 
society  can  offer  no  plea  but  that  of  "guilty"  to  the  charge.  So 
fully  do  I  trust  to  the  efficacy  of  this  process  in  the  States  of 
Maryland,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee  that  all  that  is 
wanting,  in  my  judgment,  to  disburden  them  of  slavery  in  a 
reasonable  tune,  is  means  to  defray  the  cost  of  a  comfortable 
conveyance  to  a  safe  and  pleasant  home  of  all  slaves  who  may  be 
offered  by  their  owners  for  removal.  ...  I  would  not  venture 
the  opinion  that  there  would,  in  this  way,  be  any  sudden  extin 
guishment  of  slavery  in  those  States,  but  it  would  not  be  hazard 
ing  my  reputation  for  forecast  to  say  that  it  would  be  continually 
approaching  its  termination. 

He  proceeds  to  combat  the  idea  of  trying  the  experi 
ment  of  abolition  before  every  other  feasible  plan  is  tried ; 
and  lie  lays  down  a  general  proposition,  "  that  there  is  in 
society  an  inherent  power  for  self-preservation,  which  it  is 
authorized  to  use  for  the  removal  of  any  evil  that  in  its  na 
ture  tends  to  produce  social  dissolution,  although  it  may 
be  unavoidable  that  another  evil  be  introduced,  instead  of 
the  one  removed,  provided  it  be  of  less  magnitude." 

This  was  a  two-edged  sword,  and  it  gave  great  offense, 
as  asserting  the  legislative  right  to  remove  slavery. 

In  his  seventh  number  he  assents  to  the  proposition 
that  "  the  evil  of  a  settled,  self -perpetuating  system,  by 
which  a  large  and  increasing  number  of  our  race  are, 
through  all  ages,  to  be  debarred  of  rights  declared  to  be 
indestructible  is  greater  than  any  evil  affecting  the  gen 
eral  welfare  to  be  produced  by  their  liberation  among  us  " ; 
thinks  the  South  is  in  a  situation  "  which  it  is  desirable 
to  change ;  and  examines  the  duty  of  a  slave-holder  uneasy 
under  the  operation  of  conscientious  scruples  and  desirous 
of  releasing  himself  from  the  relation  of  master."  He  re 
fers  to  slavery  as  "  that  hydra  which,  with  bloody  crest, 
has  been  well-nigh  crushing  to  death,  in  its  horrid  folds, 


128  JAMES  G.  BIRNBY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

the  ripening  manhood  of  our  country  " ;  and  expresses  the 
opinion  that  "  benevolence  and  wisdom,  if  properly  led  on, 
will,  at  length,  enable  every  part  of  this  enlightened  land 
to  see  that  to  her  greatest  strength  and  highest  happiness 
slavery  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  ever  opposed— 
and  to  throw  off  the  foul  clog  by  which  she  has  been  en 
cumbered  as  the  leader  of  the  nations  in  their  march  to 
freedom." 

It  may  be  easily  imagined  what  a  stir  and  excitement 
these  articles  caused  among  Southern  politicians.  They 
were  without  precedent  in  the  annals  of  the  press  of  the 
Gulf  States.  Though  opposed  to  instantaneous,  they 
strongly  advocated  gradual  abolition.  And  they  were 
written  by  a  native  Southerner!  A  man  of  standing! 
The  first  two  or  three  were  copied  from  the  Huntsville 
"  Democrat "  by  a  great  many  slave-State  papers ;  but,  as 
the  series  went  on,  the  number  of  copying  papers  fell  off ; 
at  the  seventh  number  there  were  none  ;  and  the  "  Demo 
crat  "  itself  refused  the  eighth,  for  prudential  reasons ! ! 
The  Alabama  press  was  closed  to  Mr.  Birney.  The  Gulf 
States  had  refused  to  hear  his  appeal.  He  was  forced1  to 
the  conclusion  that  if  he  wished  to  pry  up  slavery  f tfohi 
its  deep  foundations,  he  must  seek  farther  north  for  a 
place  to  plant  his  lever. 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Gurley,  under  the  date  of  September 
14th,  1833,  Mr.  Birney  writes  : 

How  greatly  shall  I  be  pleased  to  see  you  personally,  that 
I  might  communicate  to  you  more  fully  than  I  can  in  a  letter  the 
results  of  my  observations  in  the  South.  The  truth  is  appalling 
to  every  friend  of  the  Union.  .  .  .  Yet  I  fear  I  should  have  noth 
ing  to  communicate  that  would  encourage  the  friends  of  coloni 
zation  and  humanity.  I  have  been  greatly  disappointed  in  the 
insensibility  of  the  religious  community  on  the  subject  of  slavery. 
So  far  from  sending  their  slaves  to  Liberia,  the  greater  part  are 
not  slow  to  justify  slavery  in  our  circumstances.  ...  I  must 
give  you  my  opinion  candidly  as  to  our  prospects  in  the 


AGENT  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.       129 

South.  I  fear  nothing  effectual  will  be  done  here  for  getting  rid 
of  slavery  until  the  evil  shall  cure  itself.  The  only  effectual  way 
that  seems  open  to  my  view  is  the  withdrawal  of  Virginia  (or 
Maryland  or  Kentucky)  from  the  slave  States,  ~by  the  adoption  of 
some  scheme  of  emancipation.  Should  this  be  done,  the  whole 
system  of  slavery  in  the  United  States  would,  from  the  very 
pressure  of  public  opinion,  be  brought— and  that  in  a  few  years 
— in  shivers  to  the  ground.  In  proportion  as  the  slave-holding 
territory  is  weakened  in  political  influence,  it  will  be  weakened 
in  the  power  of  withstanding  the  force  of  public  sentiment ;  and 
the  last  State  in  which  slavery  shall  exist — although  its  slaves,  as 
property,  may  be  hedged  around  by  laws  and  constitutions,  and 
absolutely  intangible — yet  will  it  be  perfectly  odious.  ...  I 
assure  you,  sir,  I  have  no  hope  for  the  South.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
escape  but  in  doing  that  which  I  am  almost  certain  will  not  be 
done. 

What  I  would  now  suggest  would  be,  to  press  with  every 
energy  upon  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  Kentucky  for  emancipation 
and  colonization.  If  one  of  those  States  be  not  detached  from 
the  number  of  slave-holding  States,  the  slave  question  must  inevi 
tably  dissolve  the  Union,  and  that  before  very  long.  Should  Vir 
ginia  (or  Maryland  or  Kentucky)  leave  them,  the  Union  will  be 
safe,  though  the  sufferings  of  the  South  will  be  almost  unto 
death.  Indeed,  I  am  by  no  means  certain  but  that  Lower  Mis 
sissippi  and  the  country  bordering  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  will 
ultimately  be  peopled  almost  entirely  by  blacks. 

In  the  same  letter  he  gives  notice  that  the  official  con 
nection  between  him  and  the  Colonization  Society  will 
cease  on  the  loth  of  the  following  November. 

On  the  14th  of  the  following  October  he  was  present 
at  a  meeting  at  Nashville  of  the  Tennessee  Colonization 
Society.  He  writes : 

Many  members  of  the  Legislature,  then  in  session,  were  pres 
ent.  The  meeting  was  held  in  the  Representatives'  Hall,  which 
was  so  crowded  that  many  who  came  to  hear  were  unable  to  get 
into  the  room.  I  spoke  for  about  an  hour  and  a  half,  and,  going 
beyond  what  I  had  done  or  could  with  propriety  do  south  of 


130  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Tennessee,  I  assumed  the  position  that  slavery  must  not  be  re 
garded  as  a  permanent  condition  among  us  ;  and  I  attempted  to 
show  that  there  are  causes  now  in  very  active  operation  to  bring 
it  to  a  termination.  .  .  .  My  propositions  were  so  much  bolder 
than  they  had  ever  been  elsewhere  that  I  was  prepared  to  expect 
some  complaint  from  the  timid  and  indolent  lovers  of  slavery. 
But  there  was  none  at  all. 

He  spoke  also  to  crowded  houses  at  Gallatin,  Franklin, 
and  Elkton.  He  writes  : 

It  is  my  sincere  belief  that  the  South,  at  least  that  part  of  it 
in  which  I  have  been  operating,  has  within  the  last  year  become 
very  manifestly  more  and  more  indurated  on  the  subject  of 
slavery.  .  .  .  They  (the  planters)  are  as  blind  to  the  natural 
rights  of  their  slaves  as  the  whites  of  the  West  Indies  ever  were. 

With  his  Tennessee  trip,  and  the  promotion  of  peti 
tions  from  all  parts  of  his  district  to  the  State  Legislatures 
for  pecuniary  aid  to  the  Colonization  Society,  his  official 
relations  to  it  came  to  an  end.  In  a  letter  written  about 
this  time  to  Mr.  Gurley  he  says : 

I  am  pleased  to  see  all  engines  at  work  for  the  extirpation  of 
slavery  from  our  land.  I  believe  the  condition  of  slavery  to  be 
altogether  unchristian,  and  that  therefore  its  tendency  is  to  our 
ruin  as  a  people. 

About  the  15th  of  November,  1832,  he  removed  from 
Alabama  to  his  native  county  in  Kentucky,  and  estab 
lished  his  home  a  mile  and  a  half  from  Danville,  on  a  pur 
chased  farm  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  acres,  immediately 
adjoining  his  father's. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

FROM  COLONIZATION,    THROUGH  GRADUAL  EMANCI 
PATION,    TO  IMMEDIATE  ABOLITION. 

His  reasons  for  removing  to  Kentucky  are  best  given 
in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter,  dated  November  27, 
1833,  to  a  friend,  Gerrit  Smith,  of  New  York  : 

Two  years  and  a  half  ago,  while  residing  in  the  State  of  Ala 
bama,  my  mind  became  greatly  aroused  to  the  sin  of  slave- hold 
ing.  This,  aided  by  the  malignant  influence  that  I  saw  slavery 
exerting  upon  my  children,  determined  me  to  visit  Illinois  for 
the  purpose  of  removing  thither,  of  there  pursuing  my  profession, 
and  of  liberating  the  few  slaves  that  I  had.  I  authorized  a  friend 
of  mine  to  purchase  property  for  me  in  Jacksonville.  The  owner 
of  it  refused  to  sell.  Mrs.  Birney,  whose  health  has  always  been 
delicate,  was  somewhat  averse,  after  residing  so  long  at  the 
South,  to  try  so  high  a  latitude  and  to  fall  in  with  habits  and 
modes  of  life  so  different  from  those  to  which  she  had  been  ac 
customed.  My  father,  who  is  considerably  advanced  in  age  and 
a  cripple,  too,  was  anxious  for  me,  his  only  son,  to  return  to 
Kentucky  and  reside  in  this  neighborhood  near  him.  To  all 
these  considerations,  which  I  will  not  say  would  have  been  insuffi 
cient  in  themselves,  another  was  added  of  commanding  impor 
tance — I  looked  upon  it  as  the  lest  site  in  our  whole  country  for  •, 
taking  a  stand  against  slavery. 

He  and  his  family  were  received  with  open  arms  by 
their  numerous  relatives  and  connections  and  the  people 
of  Mercer  County.  If  he  had  desired  preferment  in  the 
political  world,  he  was  at  that  time  in  a  position  to  ob- 


132  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

tain  it  easily.  He  was  in  good  circumstances,  an  only 
son,  and  the  prospective  heir  to  half  of  a  large  estate ;  his 
experience  in  public  business  and  legal  practice  had  been 
varied ;  he  was  always  a  good  speaker,  often  an  eloquent 
one ;  he  was  personally  popular ;  he  belonged  to  an  influ 
ential  family  which  ramified  into  all  parts  of  Kentucky ; 
and  no  act  of  public  notoriety  had  as  yet  separated  him 
from  the  dominant  party  in  the  State.  His  entry  into 
politics  would  have  much  gratified  his  father. 

Before  he  left  Alabama  he  had  written  to  the  slave 
holders  in  Kentucky,  who  in  1830-'31  had  pledged  them 
selves  to  gradual  emancipation,  urging  them  to  issue  a  call 
for  a  convention  at  Lexington  to  form  a  State  society. 
The  call  was  issued.  The  time  named  was  the  Gth  of  De 
cember.  Hardly  had  he  reached  his  new  home  when  he 
saw  in  person  or  wrote  to  every  Kentucky  slave-holder 
likely  to  join  in  the  movement.  At  that  time  he  was  san 
guine  of  success.  The  whole  number  of  slaves  of  all  ages 
in  the  State  did  not  exceed  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
thousand.  Under  the  unceasing  agitation  of  abolition,' 
since  the  formation,  about  1807,  of  the  Kentucky  Aboli 
tion  Society  by  Presbyterian  and  Baptist  preachers — by 
James  Duncan,  John  Rankin,  John  Finley  Crowe,  E.  J. 
Breckenridge,  and  others;  by  the  "Abolition  Intelligencer," 
the  "  Western  Luminary,"  and  "  Eussellville  Messenger  "  ; 
and  by  the  advocates  of  the  convention  to  change  the  Con 
stitution,  the  per  cent  of  increase  of  slaves,  which  had  been 
99  between  1800  and  1810  and  57  in  the  next  decade,  had 
been  lowered  to  20-J  in  the  decade  ending  with  1830 ;  and 
forty-eight  slave-holders  of  influence  and  standing  had  in 
1831  publicly  declared  their  intention  to  accomplish  grad 
ual  emancipation  in  the  State.  The  hour  to  strike  the 
final  blow  at  the  decaying  institution  of  slavery  seemed  to 
Mr.  Birney  to  have  arrived. 

That  the  blow  had  been  too  long  deferred  soon  became 


FROM  COLONIZATION  TO  ABOLITION.  133 

evident  to  him.  The  answers  by  the  reformers  of  1831  to 
his  letter  were  generally  unsatisfactory.  Some  of  these 
gentlemen  avowed  a  change  of  opinion,  and  others  de 
clined  to  attend  or  had  doubts  or  thought  the  convention 
ill  timed.  A  few  were  willing  to  attend,  but  hoped  the 
proceedings  would  be  marked  with  great  prudence.  Only  / 
nine  persons,  all  slave-holders,  were  present  at  the  conven 
tion.  A  prolonged  discussion  elicited  many  facts  which 
were  new  to  Mr.  Birney.  It  appeared  that,  w4thin  the 
two  preceding  years,  a  number  of  secret  societies,  com 
posed  of  members  of  both  political  parties,  had  been 
formed  in  different  parts  of  the  State  for  the  ostensible 
object  of  protecting  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  slave 
States  from  the  encroachments  of  the  Korth ;  that,  in  the 
newspapers  and  in  debates  and  political  speeches,  the  ex 
istence  in  the  national  Constitution  of  guarantees  for 
slavery  was  widely  asserted ;  that  a  jealous  sectional  feel 
ing  was  in  process  of  formation ;  that  many  persons  were 
justifying  slavery  from  the  Bible  as  well  as  on  political 
grounds ;  that  -the  acquisition  of  Texas,  "  peaceably  if  we 
can,  forcibly  if  we  must,"  was  gaining  friends ;  and  that, 
because  of  the  closer  organization  and  aggressive  position 
of  the  large  slave-holders,  freedom  of  discussion  and  action 
in  regard  to  slavery  was  greatly  narrowed  down  every 
where  in  the  State  and  that  emancipationists  were  sub 
jected  to  social  ostracism  more  or  less  severe.  The  result 
of  the  deliberations  was  the  formation  of  a  society  upon 
the  principle  of  emancipating  the  future  offspring  of 
slaves  at  the  age  of  twenty-one.  This  fell  very  far  short 
of  Mr.  Birney's  expectations ;  but  he  succeeded  in  obtain 
ing  the  adoption  of  a  clause  admitting  to  membership  non- 
slave-holders  who  would  pledge  themselves  to  promote 
gradual  emancipation.  The  meetings  of  the  convention 
were  public,  and  were  continued  through  two  days  with 
out  interference.  The  mob  period  had  not  then  begun  in 


134:  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

Kentucky.  After  its  adjournment  Mr.  Birney  devoted 
himself  for  a  short  time  to  obtaining  members  and  organ 
izing  auxiliaries.  Lectures,  private  correspondence,  essays 
for  several  Kentucky  newspapers  whose  columns  were 
open  to  him,  and  reading  the  abundant  literature  of  the 
subject,  absorbed  his  attention  and  energies. 

From  the  time  of  his  removal  from  Alabama  he  en 
tered  upon  the  most  thorough  study  of  the  history  of 
slavery,  of  the  institution  as  it  existed  in  the  West  Indies 
and  the  United  States,  and  of  all  the  efforts  to  ameliorate 
or  abolish  it.  For  this  purpose  he  obtained  a  large  num 
ber  of  British,  American,  and  French  books  and  pam 
phlets  on  the  subject,  both  anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery, 
both  for  and  against  gradualism.  He  gave  special  atten 
tion  to  the  results  of  British  legislation  for  the  regulation 
of  slavery  in  the  West  India  islands,  reading  carefully  not 
only  the  parliamentary  debates  and  reports  relating  to 
them,  but  the  essays,  treatises,  and  books  of  travels  by 
private  persons  who  had  visited  the  islands,  and  several 
volumes  of  the  "  Anti-Slavery  Monthly  Reporter,"  which 
he  sent  for  to  London.  Among  the  works  kept  on  his 
table  were  "  Four  Essays  on  Colonial  Slavery,"  by  John 
Jeremy,  Esq.  ;  "  An  Outline  for  Immediate  Emancipa 
tion,"  by  Charles  Stuart ;  Clarkson's  "  Thoughts  "  ;  George 
Thompson's  "  Three  Lectures  on  Colonial  Slavery " ; 
"  Facts  proving  the  Good  Conduct  and  Prosperity  of 
Emancipated  Negroes  "  ;  "  The  Abolitionist's  Catechism," 
abridged,  published  at  Bristol,  England,  in  1830.  Wilber- 
f  orce's  "  Appeal,"  Clarkson's  "  History,"  and  several  others 
had  been  in  his  library  many  years.  (See  Appendix  A.) 

Though  he  had  been  prepossessed  by  the  "  rhapsodies 
of  Garrison  "  against  Northern  abolitionism  as  unfair  in 
argument  and  malevolent  in  feeling,  he  was  too  liberal 
and  just  not  to  hear  that  side.  He  accordingly  subscribed 
for  the  "  New  York  Evangelist,"  a  Presbyterian  or  Con- 


FROM  COLONIZATION  TO    ABOLITION.  135 

gregationalist  weekly,  and,  being  pleased  with  its  tone, 
temper,  and  ability,  he  added  to  it  the  "  Emancipator " 
(New  York),  the  organ  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society.  It  was  not  long  before  he  subscribed  to  the  dif 
ferent  publications  of  that  society,  and  learned  to  appre 
ciate  the  moderation,  candor,  Christian  spirit,  liberality, 
firmness,  and  devotion  to  truth  with  which  they  were 
conducted.  He  received  and  read  the  poet  Whittier's 
admirable  tract  entitled  "Justice  and  Expediency;  or 
Slavery  considered  with  a  View  to  its  Rightful  and  Effect 
ual  Remedy,  Abolition  " ;  Elizur  Wright's  "  Sin  of  Slav 
ery  and  its  Remedy  " ;  Beriah  Green's  "  Four  Sermons," 
preached  at  Western  Reserve  College  in  1832  ;  and  sundry 
other  anti-slavery  tracts  of  the  day.  Of  American  anti- 
slavery  books,  he  procured  those  of  Bourne  (1816),  Ken- 
rick  (1816),  Torrey  (1817),  Duncan  (1824),  Rankin  (1824), 
Stroud  (1827),  and  Phelps  (1833).  For  Whittier,  as  a 
man  and  reasoner,  he  conceived  a  high  esteem,  which 
ripened  into  friendship  during  their  intimacy  in  later 
years ;  of  Rankin,  he  always  spoke  with  respect ;  and  to 
the  Rev.  A.  A.  Phelps,  pastor  of  the  Pine  Street  Church, 
Boston,  and  author  of  "  Lectures  on  Slavery  and  its  Rem 
edy,"  he  gave  the  praise  of  having  produced  the  most  full 
and  satisfactory  argument  contained  in  American  works 
on  the  subject.  A  paper  that  had  great  weight  with  him 
was  the  one  signed  in  1833  by  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  clergymen  of  different  denominations,  stating  reasons 
for  repudiating  colonizationism,  and  indorsing  immediate 
abolition ;  it  was  reprinted  as  a  preface  to  Phelps's  lect 
ures.  He  made  also  an  exhaustive  study  of  legal  decisions' 
in  England  and  the  United  States  and  of  the  national 
and  State  Constitutions  on  questions  touching  slavery, 
and  framed  his  argument  that  freedom  is  national,  and 
slavery  local  only. 

In  February,  1834,  the  famous  debate  at  Lane  Semi- 


136  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 


on  slavery  began,  having  been  suggested  and  pro 
moted  by  Arthur  Tappan,  who  was  the  most  generous 
benefactor  of  the  seminary,  and  who,  in  the  preceding 
December,  had  become  president  of  the  newly  organized 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society  (Appendix  C).  It  was 
continued  through  eighteen  sittings,  held  at  intervals,  and 
closing  in  April.  It  was  the  most  able  and  thorough  dis 
cussion  of  the  subject  ever  held  in  this  country.  The 
participants  were  eighty  students  of  theology.  In  age 
they  ranged  from  twenty-one  to  thirty-five.  Some  of 
them  had  been  lecturers  for  religious  and  benevolent  so 
cieties.  A  few  were  noted  as  platform-speakers.  Of 
these,  Henry  B.  Stanton  was  one  of  the  best.  The  leader, 
however,  was  Theodore  D.  Weld.  He  had  already  gained 
a  reputation  throughout  the  West  and  Southwest  for  ef 
fective  oratory.  As  a  speaker  on  temperance  and  educa 
tion,  he  had  no  equal.  Profoundly  religious  in  tempera 
ment,  sympathetic  with  all  human  emotion,  nobly  simple 
in  manner,  free  from  thought  of  self,  he  touched  the 
springs  of  the  human  heart  with  a  sure  hand.  No  revival 
ist  —  not  even  Finney  or  Moody  —  could  bear  his  hearers 
to  such  heights  of  passion  or  through  such  a  wide  range  of 
feeling.  They  wept  or  laughed  with  him,  and  did  not  sus 
pect  that  they  had  listened  to  one  of  Nature's  greatest  ora 
tors  until  they  remembered  that  no  one  had  ever  before  so 
moved  them,  and  felt  a  consciousness  of  living  on  a  higher 
plane  than  before  they  had  heard  him.  His  diction  was 
copious,  and  his  language  so  apt  that  every  thought  found 
natural  expression.  Poetry,  pathos,  and  humor  gave  va 
riety  to  his  eloquence,  and  purity  and  love  were  its  atmos 
phere.  He  catered  to  no  prurient  taste  ;  uttered  no  mal 
ice  ;  sharpened  no  phrase  so  that  its  venomed  point  might 
rankle  in  another's  breast.  He  was  incapable  of  hate; 
his  great  soul  was  full  of  compassion  for  the  oppressor 
and  oppressed.  Secretary  Stanton  and  Wendell  Phillips 


FROM  COLONIZATION  TO  ABOLITION.  137 

pronounced  him  the  foremost  orator  of  his t time;  they 
might  have  added,  "  and  one  of  the  greatest  men."  He 
had  none  of  the  vanity  of  leadership,  no  egotism,  no  pre 
tentiousness.  He  had  heen  an  abolitionist  from  boyhood, 
had  traveled  through  the  South,  and  was  well  informed 
in  regard  to  the  nature  and  effects  of  slavery.  His  knowl 
edge  and  pervasive  influence  informed  the  Lane  Seminary 
debate,  lifting  it  to  the  height  of  its  subject.  As  it  pro 
gressed,  its  results  were  published  in  the  "Journal,"  a 
Cincinnati  religious  weekly,  to  which  Mr.  Birney  was  a 
subscriber.  When  in  May  the  Lane  Seminary  students, 
burning  with  enthusiasm  and  well  equipped  with  argu 
ments,  set  out  to  abolitionize  the  Xorthwest,  they  carried 
with  them  the  sympathies  of  the  leading  emancipationist 
in  Kentucky. 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  with  accuracy  each  step  of  the 
slow  advance  of  Mr.  Birney  to  immediatism.  All  the 
prejudices  of  his  youth  and  early  manhood,  gained  in 
K^ew  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  were  in  favor  of  gradual 
emancipation,  if.  effected  by  compulsory  legislation.  That 
method  of  reaching  ultimate  abolition  had  been  successful 
in  the  Middle  and  Eastern  States,  and  had  seemed  to  him 
the  most  expedient  one  for  the  border  slave  States.  Such 
a  measure  could  be  made  effective  by  State  legislation 
only ;  and  he  appears  to  have  regarded  it  as  a  political 
result  to  be  accomplished  under  a  changed  state  of  public 
opinion.  After  a  public  advocacy  of  gradualism  extending 
through  a  few  weeks  only,  he  became  convinced  that  the 
political  classes  were  deaf  to  all  appeals  on  the  subject, 
and  that  the  active  men  of  both  national  parties  were  for 
the  first  time  united  in  opposition  to  any  discussion  of  it. 
Kor  could  he  make  any  impression  on  slave-holders  by 
arguments  addressed  to  the  selfish  principle.  In  a  letter 
of  this  date  to  Gerrit  Smith,  then  a  gradualist  and  coloni- 
zationist,  he  says : 


138  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

We  may  take  the  Kentucky  slave-holder,  having,  say,  fifty 
slaves  ;  show  him  from  the  undisputed  statistics  of  our  country 
the  advantages  enjoyed  by  Ohio  over  his  own  State  ;  prove  to 
him  that  it  is  owing  to  free  labor  and  nothing  else  ;  you  may 
further,  by  comparing  his  number  of  slaves  with  their  aggregate 
in  the  whole  State,  demonstrate  to  him  what  is  his  individual 
loss ;  and  it  will,  I  apprehend,  all  amount  to  nothing.  He  will 
admit  all  your  facts,  that  your  calculations  are  correct  and  your 
"  answers  "  undeniable.  Yet  he  will  reply  to  you,  "Sir,  I  am 
willing,  for  the  sake  of  my  ease  and  the  indulgence  of  those 
habits  in  which  I  have  been  educated,  to  pay  the  sum  that  you 
have  so  satisfactorily  shown  I  shall  lose  by  remaining  a  slave 
holder."  With  such  a  man,  using  such  a  weapon,  you  can  not 
proceed  a  step  further  ;  he  fails  you  completely. 

On  more  thorough  study  of  the  subject,  lie  became 
convinced  that  a  gradual  emancipation  law  in  Kentucky 
would  result  not  in  the  increase  of  the  number  of  freed- 
men,  but  in  the  sales  to  the  cotton-raising  States  of  nearly 
all  the  prospective  freedmen ;  that  immediate  abolition 
would  be  less  dangerous  to  society  and  the  labor  supply 
in  the  Gulf  States  than  freeing  the  slaves  in  classes,  say, 
of  ten  thousand  each,  and  attempting  to  maintain  the 
free  and  slave  labor  systems  side  by  side ;  and,  in  short, 
that  gradual  emancipation  would  not  work  in  practice  as 
well  as  immediate  abolition.  To  do  justice  was  the  high 
est  expediency. 

As  his  speeches  were  generally  made  in  Presbyterian 
churches,  they  were  naturally  addressed  rather  to  religious 
than  political  motives. 

His  arguments  to  public  audiences  became  more  and 
more  based  on  the  sin  fulness  of  slavery.  lie  was  too 
clear  a  reasoner  not  to  be  conscious  of  the  discrepancy 
between  this  premise  and  the  conclusion  that  slavery 
might  be  continued.  The  more  he  thought  and  spoke  on 
gradualism,  the  more  sensible  he  became  of  his  entangle 
ment  in  what  was  not  only  bad  logic,  but  false  theology. 


FROM  COLONIZATION  TO  ABOLITION.  139 

IJis_powerf  ul  appeals  led  several  slave-holders  to  give  deeds 
of  manumission  to  their  slaves,  and  each  act  of  this  kind 
tended  to  convince  him  of  the  hollowness  of  gradualism, 
and  to  encourage  him  to  have  more  faith  in  the  might  of 
the  truth.  In  a  letter  to  Gerrit  Smith,  written  just  after 
he  had  embraced  immediatisrn,  he  says : 

The  only  means  of  succeeding  at  all  is  to  apply  the  whole  truth 
to  the  conscience.  If  less  be  done,  it  will  be  as  inefficient  as 
•would  be  the  preaching  of  gradual  and  partial  repentance  toward 
God.  Let  there  be  set  up  a  principle  false  or  unsound  in  any  of 
its  parts  ;  under  the  false  or  unsound  part  slave-holders  as  well 
as  sinners  will  take  refuge.  ...  If  gradual  emancipation  be  in 
sisted  on,  the  conscience  of  the  slave-holder  is  left  undisturbed, 
and  you  gain  nothing. 

Aljout^the  first  of  June,  having  complied  with  the 
Kentucky  law  requiring  a  bond  with  sureties,  to  indem 
nify  the  State  and  county  against  bad  conduct  or  pauper 
ism  on  the  part  of  persons  manumitted,  he  gave  a  deed  of 
emancipation  to  e'urh  of  his  six  slaves.  Kach  papi-i-  was 
witnessed  by  his  two  oldest  sons,  and  delivered  in  the 
presence  of  the  assembled  family. 

His  freed  people  were  strongly  attached  to  him. 
They  remained  with  him  on  wages  until  he  left  Kentucky. 
They  were  a  family  of  five — Michael,  his  wife,  son,  and 
two  daughters.  Also  a  mulatto  child  of  six  years  of  age. 
The  son  he  apprenticed  to  an  Ohio  blacksmith,  and  for 
one  of  the  -^daughters  he  obtained  the  place  of  housemaid 
in  a  respectable  family.  The  little  mulatto  girl  was  ap 
prenticed  to  him  until  her  majority.  He  took  her,  in  1835, 
with  the  family  to  Cincinnati,  gave  her  a  good  common- 
school  education,  and  had  her  taught  to  be  a  seamstress. 
All  of  them  became  respectable  working  people.  To 
Michael  he  gave  for  his  life  work  as  a  slave  the  wages  of 
a  free  laborer,  with  interest  on  the  amount  for  each  year. 
With  Michael's  consent,  this  sum  was  invested  for  him  in 


140  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

stocking  a  livery  stable  at  Louisville.  In  this  new  busi 
ness  Michael  was  skillful,  kept  his  temperance  pledge  faith 
fully,  and  prospered. 

Two  years  after  this  act  of  justice  he  was  cruelly  slan 
dered  by  AY.  L.  Stone,  Esq.,  editor  of  a  New  York  paper. 
Mr.  Stone  had  been,  up  to  1828,  a  prominent  member  of 
the  Biennial  Conventions  to  Promote  the  Abolition  of 
Slavery.  On  the  election  of  General  Jackson,  he  aban 
doned  that  organization,  and  distinguished  himself  by  his 
hostility  to  his  former  associates  and  their  coadjutors.  So 
long  as  he  confined  himself  to  general  invective  he  was 
not  noticed,  but  when  he  made  a  specific  charge  Mr.  Bir- 
ney  wrote  him  a  letter.  Mr.  Stone  refused  to  publish  it, 
and  it  appeared  in  the  "  Emancipator."  It  is  reprinted 
here  as  the  only  authentic  statement  of  the  matter  in  ques 
tion.  (See  Appendix  D.) 

At  the  time  of  his  removal  from  Alabama  he  had  lost 
all  faith  in  colonization  as  a  means  for  the  extinction  of 
slavery.  He  did  not  attend  the  anniversary  meeting  of 
the  National  Colonization  Society  or  the  annual  meeting, 
in  January,  of  the  Kentucky  auxiliary.  In  his  absence  he 
was  elected  one  of  the  vice-presidents  of  the  latter,  an 
honor  of  which  he  was  not  officially  notified.  As  he  did 
not  hesitate  in  his  public  addresses  to  allude  to  the  ineffi- 
cacy  of  colonizationism  to  meet  the  exigencies  then  press 
ing  upon  the  State  and  country,  the  change  in  his  opin 
ions  became  noised  abroad,  and  inspired  no  little  anxiety 
among  the  friends  of  that  cause.  One  of  these,  Mr.  Peers, 
formerly  president  of  Transylvania  University,  published 
early  in  1834  a  prospectus  'for  a  colonization  paper  to  be 
issued  at  Lexington.  Having  relied  in  some  degree  on 
Mr.  Birney's  influence  to  support  it,  he  was  disturbed  by 
the  reports  of  his  change  of  opinion,  and  went  to  Danville 
for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  truth  in  a  personal  con 
ference.  He  was  treated  with  frankness  and,  being  at 


FROM  COLONIZATION  TO  ABOLITION. 

heart  opposed  to  slavery,  was  so  shaken  by  Mr.  Birney's 
arguments  that  on  returning  home  he  recalled  his  pro 
spectus  and  abandoned  his  project.  The  reasons  for  his 
course  becoming  known,  some  of  the  Kentucky  papers 
mentioned  the  fact  that  Mr.  Birney  was  one  of  the  vice- 
presidents  of  the  Kentucky  Colonization  Society.  To  re 
lieve  himself  from  this  false  position,  he  wrote  out,  early  in 
May,  his  resignation.  As  first  written,  it  was  expressed 
in  about  twenty  lines.  He  had  not  mailed  it  when  he 
received  a  letter  from  a  friend  at  Paris,  Ky.,  suggest 
ing  that  a  full  statement  of  his  reasons  was  due  to  his 
former  associates.  This  was  followed  by  a  paragraph  in 
the  "  Luminary,"  expressing  the  desire  of  many  Presby 
terians  to  know  his  objections  to  colonization ;  and  this 
was  copied  and  approved  by  several  religious  journals  in 
the  North.  Yielding  to  these  requests,  he  threw  aside  his 
first  letter  and  wrote  a  second  and  longer  one.  This,  too, 
was  nothing  but  a  resignation  of  office,  with  reasons  as 
signed.  It  fell  short  of  what  was  wanted,  and  went  into 
the  waste  basket.  As  he  wrote,  the  fire  within  him 
burned ;  and  he  took  up  his  pen  again  and  wrote  the  well- 
known  pamphlet  which,  under  the  unpretending  title  of 
"Letter  on  Colonization,"  is  a  most  touching,  cogently 
reasoned,  and  powerful  appeal  to  the  American  people  for 
suffering  millions  and  an  imperiled  Republic.  It  first  .ap 
peared  in  the.  "  Western  Luminary,"  was  copied  into  a 
large  number  of  Northern  journals,  including  all  the  larg 
er  anti-slavery  papers  proper,  and  was  immediately  repub- 
lished  in  a  large  edition  in  pamphlet  form  by  the  Ameri 
can  Anti-Slavery  Society.* 

It  appeared  July  15,  1834,  in  Lexington,  Ky.     The 
time  was  opportune.      Public  attention  throughout   the 

*  Many  subsequent  editions  were  issued  in  New  York  and  elsewhere, 
and  the  pamphlet  kept  its  place  in  anti-slavery  bookstores  up  to  1861. 


142  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

country  had  been  drawn  to  the  slavery  question  by  the 
Lane  Seminary  debate  and  the  subsequent  lectures  in  the 
Western  States  by  more  than  fifty  of  the  students ;  by  the 
imminence  of  the  emancipation  of  800,000  slaves  in  the 
West  Indies  (it  was  fixed  by  law  for  the  1st  of  August) ; 
by  the  riotous  proceedings,  July  4th,  to  prevent  David 
Paul  Brown  from  delivering  an  abolition  speech  in  New 
York  city;  and  by  the  Chatham  Street  riots,  the  sacking 
of  Lewis  Tappan's  house,  and  the  mobs  against  the  col 
ored  people,  all  of  which  had  kept  New  York  City  in  tur 
moil  from  the  4th  to  the  12th  of  July.  These  mobs  were 
fomented  by  politicians  and  led  by  slave-holders,  and  they 
had  stirred  the  nation  to  its  depths.  The  Tappans  and 
their  co-laborers  at  New  York  were  in  danger  of  their, 
lives.  They  issued,  July  17th,  a  circular,  correcting  the 
common  misrepresentation  of  their  principles ;  but  their 
houses  and  persons  were  still  under  guard  when  the  "  Let 
ter  on  Colonization  "  was  republished  in  the  Eastern  cities, 
including  New  York.  Its  effect  on  public  opinion  was  al 
most  marvelous.  To  .the  Tappans,  the  calm,  fearless 
voice  from  Kentucky  was  as  welcome  as  the  sound  of  the 
Scotch  slogan  in  the  distance  was  to  the  beleaguered  garri 
son  of  Lucknow.  It  was  an  appeal  by  a  Christian  states 
man  ;  it  was  the  first  of  the  kind  by  a  native  Southerner ! 
The  enthusiasm  it  excited  may  be  imagined,  when  a  rev 
erend  doctor  of  divinity,  Samuel  H.  Coxe,  of  Brooklyn, 
N.  Y.,  could  say  of  it :  "A  Birney  has  shaken  the  conti 
nent  by  putting  down  his  foot ;  and  his  fame  will  be  en 
vied  before  his  arguments  are  answered  or  their  force  for 
gotten."  From  this  date  James  G.  Birney  had  a  national 
reputation,  and  was  regarded  as  the  leading  representative 
of  conservative  anti-slavery  statesmanship. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IN  KENTUCKY. 
JULY,  1834,  TO  APRIL,  1835. 

AT  the  time  of  writing  the  "  Letter,"  Mr.  Birney  was 
not  a  member  of  any  anti-slavery  society  or  in  correspond 
ence  with  Northern  abolitionists.  It  was  not  long,  how 
ever,  before  they  sought  him  out.  The  first  to  visit  him 
was  Henry  B.  Stanton,  of  Ohio.  Then  came  Prof. 
Mahan  from  the  same  State ;  and,  after  him,  Charles 
Stuart,  of  England.  Each  of  these  spent  from  one  to 
three  days  under  his  roof.  About  the -same  time,  he  made 
a  very  short  visit  to  Cincinnati,  where  he  saw  Weld,  Wat 
tles,  Thome,  Morgan,  Robinson,  and  a  few  others  of  the 
Lane  Seminary  lecturers,  encouraged  them  in  their  work, 
and  exchanged  views  with  them.  •  Some  of  them  urged 
him  to  take  the  platform  in  Ohio;  but  he  declined, 
thinking  his  proper  field  of  action  was  in  Kentucky. 
One  of  the  objects  of  his  visit  was  to  renew  his  personal 
friendship  with  Theodore.X>.-Weld,  whom  he  had  learned 
in  Alabama  to  admire  and  esteem.  From  the  date  of  this 
reunion  at  Cincinnati,  until  his  decease,  these  two  men 
were  united  in  an  intimate  friendship. 

The  following  extracts  from  his  letters  to  Mr.  Weld 
will  enable  us  to  follow  part  of  his  course  in  Kentucky : 

While  I  was  in  Cincinnati  an  attempt  was  made  in  our 
lyceum  to  have  the  "  immediate  abolition  of  slavery  "  discussed. 
It  was  voted  out  on  the  ground,  as  I  understood,  that  it  was  im- 


144  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

proper  to  discuss  it  here.  The  evening  before  last  I  presided  in 
the  lyceum,  when,  altogether  without  my  knowledge  beforehand, 
the  utility  of  colonization  was  proposed  for  the  subject  of  dis 
cussion  at  our  next  meeting. 

With  a  view  to  liis  permanent  appointment  as  Profess 
or  of  Ancient  Languages,  the  trustees  of  Centre  College 
had  engaged  him  to  fill  the  place  of  Prof.  Breckenridge 
during  a  short  absence.  All  parties  were  satisfied  with  his 
manner  of  filling  the  chair.  The  result,  however,  is  thus 
noticed  by  him : 

To  make  a  short  story  of  it,  everything  else  was  acceptable  to 
the  trustees  save  my  alwlition  views.  On  this  ground  alone,  as  I 
was  informed  by  President  Young,  they  passed  me  by.  .  .  .  The 
result  of  this  has  added  greatly  to  the  pressure  upon  me  at 
home  ;  my  nearest  friends,  though  hating  slavery  in  the  abstract, 
and  wishing  there  was  none  of  it,  think  it  very  silly  in  me  to  run 
against  the  world  in  a  matter  that  can  not  in  any  icay  do  me  any 
good.  ...  I  do  not  believe  I  can  remain  in  Kentucky.  ...  I 
shall  (probably)  be  compelled  to  become  a  citizen  of  Illinois, 
scuffle  along  in  my  profession,  and  do  what  good  I  can,  as  occa 
sions  may  arise.  ...  I  discover  that  my  father  would  be  much 
opposed  to  my  removal  ;  but  how  can  I  stay  here  at  the  cost  of 
having  fetters  put  upon  every  attempt  that  I  make  ?  .  .  .  My 
nearest  friends  here  are  of  the  sort  that  are  always  crying  out  : 
"  Take  care  of  yourself — don't  meddle  with  other  people's  affairs 
— do  nothing,  say  nothing,  get  along  quietly,  make  money." 
.  .  .  I  glanced  over  a  pamphlet  entitled;  "Hints  on  Coloniza 
tion  and  Abolition,"  ascribed  to  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Breckenridge.  It 
is  a  farrago  of  incongruities.  He  thinks  slavery  a  sin,  but  when 
it  should  cease  is  questionable.  We  want  a  paper  in  the  West  to 
dissect  and  hold  up  for  public  condemnation  all  such  wretched 
conditions.  .  .  . 

[July  26,  1834.]  What  effect  upon  our  cause  will  be  pro 
duced  by  the  New  York  riots  ?  Good,  I  trust.  They  will  not 
deter  a  single  friend  worth  having  ;  and,  if  I  mistake  not,  they 
will  alarm  the  considerate  who  have  not  been  our  friends,  when 
they  are  thus  brought  to  see  in  what  danger  the  very  principles 


ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IN  KENTUCKY.          145 

of  our  Government  stand,  when  brought  into  opposition  with  the 
principle  of  slavery,  even  at  its  present  growth. 

He  discourages  the  discussion  of  the  social  equality  of 
blacks  and  whites  as  ill  timed,  and  expresses  the  opinion 
that  the  first  thing  to  be  looked  to  is  the  freedom  of  the 
slaves.  Adverting  to  a  suggestion  in  a  former  letter  of  his 
removal  to  Illinois,  he  says : 

I  might  possibly  do  more  good  by  remaining  here  some  time, 
provided  the  state  of  public  sentiment  should  justify  it.  This,  I 
trust,  I  shall  ascertain  in  a  short  time.  Should  a  good  effect  be 
produced  by  my  publication  and  any  friends  appear  to  be  rising 
up,  I  have  thought  it  would  be  well  for  me  to  visit  all  those  who 
would  be  willing  to  come  out  openly,  and  such  others  of  the  same 
temper  as  I  might  hear  of  in  my  trip,  and  try  to  effect  an  em 
bodying  of  ourselves  for  joint  action.  .  .  .  To  remove  now  would 
look  like  surrendering  the  cause  in  Kentucky  without  having 
made  any  effort  for  success  and  taking  refuge,  as  it  were,  among 
strangers.  I  could  see  many  of  our  friends  before  the  meeting  of 
the  Kentucky  Synod  in  October.  I  am  now  preparing  an  address 
to  the  ministers  and  elders  in  this  synod  on  the  subject  of  slav 
ery.  ...  I  desire  to  publish  this  before  I  go  out  to  see  such 
as  may  be  our  friends.  .  .  .  Slavery,  emancipation,  etc.,  are 
more  and  more  talked  of  here,  and  I  am  looked  upon  by  many 
pretty  much  as  a  disturber  of  the  peace.  All  begin  to  complain 
of  their  slaves  that  they  are  getting  worse  and  worse. 

August  19,  188 Jf.  He  writes  that  he  has  finished  his 
address  to  the  "  elders  and  ministers,"  and  will  publish  it 
the  next  week  in  the  Lexington  "  Luminary."  He  con 
tinues  : 

Immediately  afterward  I  will  go  out  in  quest  of  abolitionists 
among  the  Presbyterians,  to  rally  for  the  meeting  of  the  synod 
on  the  2nd  Wednesday  in  October.  ...  An  onset  must  be  made 
at  that  time  with  whatever  numbers,  few  or  many,  can  be 
brought  up  to  the  right  point.  I  have  no  small  hope  in  the 
course  that  will  be  taken  by  the  remote  and  younger  members  of 
the  synod.  .  .  .  [About  August  7.]  There  was  a  discussion  of 


14:6  JAMES  tt.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

abolition  before  the  societies  in  the  college.  President  Young 
and  I  were  the  principal  debaters.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  ar 
gument.  .  .  .  the  vote  was  twenty  for  and  twenty-two  against 
abolition.  .  .  .  I  am  much  vilified  and  abused  about  Danville. 
I  hear  none  of  it  myself.  .  .  .  Notwithstanding,  I  begin  to  think 
it  not  at  all  unlikely  that  I  can  sustain  myself  in  Kentucky  and 
even  publish  a  paper  here  if  the  effort  in  the  synod  prove  at  all 
successful.  ...  On  my  trip  South,  I  found  two  abolitionists — 
preachers  in  our  Church — one  at  Glasgow,  the  other  at  Greens- 
burg,  both  highly  respectable  in  every  way.  [They  had  been 
converted  by  his  "Letter."] 

A  diary  kept  by  Mr.  Birney  between  September  1  and 
October  23,  1834,  has  been  preserved.  From  it  we  glean 
a  few  facts  and  make  a  few  extracts. 

Sept.  1st. — A  clergyman,  from  Talladega  County,  Alabama, 
owning  four  slaves,  and  greatly  troubled  about  his  duty  to 
them,  came  to  ask  my  advice,  and  decided  to  set  them  free. 
The  clergyman's  wife  is  opposed  to  slavery,  yet  she  wishes— as  I 
discover  is  the  case  with  nearly  all  wives  who  are  opposed  to  it— 
to  escape  from  it  by  migrating  to  a  free  State. 

Sept.  1st. — I  started  on  my  tour  among  the  Presbyterian  clergy 
men,  visiting  them  at  their  homes.  The  first  was  — ,  a 

doctor  of  divinity,  a  suitable  person,  if  he  were  sound  on  the  ques 
tion  of  slavery,  to  introduce  it  in  the  synod.  He  claimed  to  have 
' '  always  been  opposed  to  slavery,  so  much  so  from  early  man 
hood  that  his  father  had  left  him  by  will  no  part  of  his  slaves, 
but  had  left  him  in  lieu  other  property."  However,  it  had  so 
turned  out  that  he  then  owned  two  women  and  three  children. 
He  objected  to  synods  declaring  slavery  a  sin,  "because  there 
were  many  female  members  of  the  Church  whose  husbands  were 
not  members  and  who  would  still  retain  slaves ;  many  persons 
who  held  them  as  guardians  for  minors,  etc. ;  and  that,  as  there- 
could  not  be  a  uniform  operation  of  a  rule  against  slavery,  it 
would,  on  the  whole,  be  well  enough  to  do  nothing  about 
it." 

These  objections  were  repeated  by  several  other  clergy 
men  who  were  visited. 


ANTI-SLAVERY   WORK  IX   KENTUCKY.          147 

Sept.  13ih. — Received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Weld,  accepting  my 
invitation  to  meet  me  near  Georgetown,  Ky.,  and  informing 
me  that  the  "Address  to  the  Kentucky  Ministers  and  Elders" 
will  be  published  entire  in  the  Cincinnati  "Journal." 

Sept.  14th. — Conversed  with  Rev.  Mr.  Taylor.  He  has  one 
slave  according  to  law,  though  he  has  never  so  regarded  her 
in  fact.  She  came  to  him  by  his  wife,  and  he  agreed  to  receive 
her  on  condition  that  she  should  consider  herself  free.  He  has 
been  in  the  habit  of  rewarding  her  for  her  services.  Talked 
also  with  Rev.  John  Blackburn.*  He  did  not  own  slaves;  he 
hired  them.  Thought  immediate  emancipation  of  all  slaves 
worse  than  a  continuance  of  slavery.  I  had  several  conversa 
tions  with  Rev.  Robert  Davidson,  of  Lexington  [afterward  the 
historian  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Kentucky],  and  found 
him  greatly  prejudiced  against  the  Eastern  abolitionists,  and 
this,  in  no  small  degree,  from  the  fact  that  they  are  the  very  new 
est  of  the  "new  school-men."  (Meaning  the  Tappans,  Beriah 
Green,  Joshua  Leavitt,  etc.)  He  has  never  owned  a  slave,  in 
tends  never  to  own  one,  though  he  has  one  hired.  He  has  also 
two  girls  who  are  free,  hired  as  servants.  He  wTill  vote  in  the 
synod,  I  think,  for  a  declaration  that  slavery  is  sinful. 

Here  I  also  saw  Henry  Thompson,  lately  a  student  of  Lane 
Seminary,  who  turned  abolitionist  and  manumitted  his  two 
slaves  upon  whose  hire  he  was  educating  himself.  He  has  been 
greatly  tormented  and  persecuted  in  Jessamine  County,  where 
he  lives. 

From  this  time  until  his  removal  from  Kentucky  Mr. 
Birney  had  Mr.  Thompson  as  an  inmate  of  his  family, 
while  the  latter  pursued  his  studies  under  Dr.  Young,  of 
Centre  College. 

Sept.  15th. — Reached  Lexington  in  the  afternoon,  wrote  a 
note  to  Mr.  Clay,  requesting  a  short .  interview  with  him  on  the 

*  A  relative  of  Rev.  Gideon  Blackburn,  D.  D.,  once  president  of  Cen 
tre  College,  who  had  advised  a  dying  and  penitent  slave-trader  to  make  a 
will  freeing  all  his  slaves  and  giving  all  his  blood-stained  money  to 
trustees  to  be  used  for  benevolent  purposes.  The  will  was  made.  (See 
Davidson's  "  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Kentucky.") 


148  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

subject  of  slavery,  etc.  He  did  not  come  home  until  near  sun 
set — too  late  for  me  to  see  him  this  evening  ;  but  he  sent  me  a 
note  inviting  me  to  breakfast  with  him  to-morrow  morning. 

Sept.  16th. — Breakfasted  this  morning  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Clay  and  one  of  their  sons.  Afterward  Mr.  Clay  invited  me  into 
the  parlor,  where  we  conversed,  he  being  the  chief  speaker,  for 
about  an  hour.  He  seems  never  to  have  gone  beyond  the  outer 
bark  of  the  subject  ;  his  views  "  vulgar,"  not  "deep."  He  said 
that  slavery  in  Kentucky  was  in  so  mitigated  a  form  as  not  to  de 
serve  the  consideration  of  a  very  great  evil ;  that  men's  interest 
in  property  had  been  found  an  insurmountable  barrier  to  gradual 
emancipation  then  (in  1799)  ;  that  now  they  wTere-more  formida 
ble.  The  case  was  hopeless  by  any  direct  effort,  and  was  to  be 
left  to  the  influence  of  liberal  principles,  as  they  should  pervade 
our  land.  He  spoke  of  Mr.  Robert  J.  Breckenridge  having  put 
himself  down  in  popular  estimation  by  his  having  advocated 
emancipation,  and  that  he  and  Mr.  John  Green — two  gentlemen 
of  great  worth  —had  disqualified  themselves  for  political  useful 
ness  by  the  part  they  had  taken  in  reference  to  slavery.  He 
related  to  me  two  facts,  that  I  have  recorded  elsewhere,  to  show 
that  the  opinion  expressed  in  his  speech  before  the"  Kentucky 
Colonization  Society  in  1829,  that  the  South  (Louisiana)  main 
tained  her  stock  of  slaves  from  their  natural  increase  was  incorrect. 
He  had  become  satisfied  of  his  error.  The  impression  made  upon 
me  by  this  interview  wras  that  Mr.  Clay  had  no  conscience  about 
this  matter,  and  therefore  that  he  would  swim  with  the  popular 
current. 

As  this  was  the  last  personal  interview  that  ever  took 
place  between  Mr.  Birney  and  Mr.  Clay,  the  former's 
memorandum  of  the  conversation,  made  on  the  same  day, 
is  given  above  verbatim  et  literatim.  It  will  be  remem 
bered  that  in  October,  1830,  Mr.  Birney  had  called  on  Mr. 
Clay  to  urge  him  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  a  na 
tional  free-soil,  gradual  emancipation  movement,  and  had 
then,  in  consequence  of  what  passed  between  them,  lost 
confidence  in  Mr.  Clay  as  a  political  leader.  From  Sep 
tember  16,  1834,  Mr.  Birney  knew  that  Mr.  Clay  would 


ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IN  KENTUCKY.          149 

antagonize  his  movements  in  Kentucky.  From  that  date, 
though  their  personal  relations  remained  on  a  friendly 
footing,  they  were  foemen  in  political  measures.  Keither 
misunderstood  the  other  on  this  point. 

The  entry  for  September  16th  in  the  diary  continues : 

After  this  interview  I  proceeded  to  the  place,  twenty  miles 
north  of  Georgetown,  where  I  was  to  meet  my  dear  friend  Weld. 
We  had  appointed  3  o'clock  p.  M.,  and  were  not  more  than  five 
minutes  apart  in  arriving  at  the  spot. 

A  quiet  house  of  private  entertainment  was  near  at  hand. 
Here  we  remained  until  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  next 
day,  talking  over  the  whole  matter,  what  course  it  would  be  best 
to  pursue,  etc.  We  parted,  greatly  refreshed,  as  I  trust,  on  both 
sides.  I  have  seen  in  no  man  such  a  rare  combination  of  great 
intellectual  powers  with  Christian  simplicity.  He  must  make 
a  powerful  impression  on  the  public  mind  of  this  country  if  he 
lives  ten  years.* 

Sept.  17th. — Saw  the  Rev.  Simeon  Salisbury,  of  Georgetown. 
He  has  never  hired  nor  owned  a  slave.  Is  greatly  in  favor  of  the 
Church  acting  in  condemnation  of  slavery. 

Sept.  18th.— Saw  Rev.  John  T.  Johnson  (Campbellite).  Found 
him  very  favorably  disposed,  going  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  did 
not  think  the  approaching  winter  would  pass  over  without  his 
having  set  his  slaves,  some  eight  or  nine  as  I  understood  him, 
free. 

Sept.  19th.— Dined  at  Lexington.  In  the  evening  called  upon 
the  Rev.  Win.  W.  Hall,  who,  I  had  understood,  was  very  favor 
ably  disposed  to  the  slaves  of  that  city,  teaching  a  negro  Sunday- 
school  and  lecturing  the  blacks  on  religious  truth.  .  .  .  Never 
have  I  seen  one  who  seemed  more  willingly  to  open  his  heart  to 
the  truth.  Mr.  Hall  took  me  to  see  Mr.  James  Weir,  a  Presby 
terian,  who  had  recently  inherited  eighty  slaves.  Mr.  Weir  had 
thought  much  about  his  religious  duty  to  them.  He  said  this 

*  In  1832,  in  the  winter,  Mr.  Weld  had  been  swept  away  in  the  icy 
current  of  Alum  River  in  an  attempt  to  cross,  and  had  been  taken  out 
apparently  drowned  and  frozen.  His  voice  was  never  so  strong  after 
ward,  and  he  could  not  use  it  freely  for  public  speaking  after  1836. 


150  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

much:  if  he  were  satisfied  it  would  benefit  his  slaves  to  manumit 
them  he  would  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  do  so.  I  think  he  was 
sincere.  Mrs.  Weir  is  willing  to  give  up  slavery  on  conditkn 
of  removing  to  a  free  State. 

Sept.  2M. — Saw  again  the  Eev.  Mr.  Taylor,  who  requested 
me  to  write  for  him  a  deed  of  manumission  for  his  negro  woman 
Pleasants,  as  he  wished  to  be  able  unhesitatingly  to  say  he  w;is 
not  a  slave-holder. 

Of  another  lie  writes  : 

The  doctor  proposes  to  send  by  the  next  Western  expedition 
to  Liberia  a  negro  woman  with  five  small  children  and  having  no 
husband.  He  thinks  she  can  support  them  all  there. 

Sept.  25th. — Greatly  to  my  mortification,  my  father,  after  hav 
ing  appeared  enlightened  on  the  Christian  duty  of  emancipation, 
has  promised  to  give  a  negro  woman  (Maria)  and  her  four  chil 
dren  (girls)  to  Mrs.  Polk  in  Danville.  I  lament  much  that  he 
has  thought  proper  to  leave  such  a  memorial  behind  him. 

Sept.  30th. — I  this  day  wrote  to  my  father  [he  had  gone  to  re 
side  with  his  daughter,  the  wife  of  Judge  Marshall,  at  Louisville] 
requesting  the  privilege  of  paying  out  of  my  own  means  what  ho 
would  say  ought  to  satisfy  Mrs.  Polk  instead  of  the  negroes  he 
promised  to  give  her.  .  .  .  About  the  close  of  last  session  there 
were  said  to  be  in  Centre  College  about  fourteen  young  men  who 
were  firm  abolitionists.  Dr.  Luke  Munsell  is  so  decidedly.  .  .  . 
He  is  superintendent  of  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum. 

...  I  have  heard  that  old  Mr.  Humphrey  Marshall  is  an  abo 
litionist  and  that  he  has  liberated  all  his  slaves,  hiring  their  serv 
ices.  Abram  T.  Skillman,  bookseller  at  Lexington,  is  said  to 
be  an  abolitionist. 

Of  the  members  of  the  synod  he  says  : 

The  Rev.  Messrs.  Calvert,  of  Bowling  Green,  Woods,  of  Glas 
gow,  Salisbury,  of  Georgetown,  Sawtell,  of  Louisville,  and  Cole, 
of  Augusta,  are  all  that  I  know  who  are  favorable  to  immediate, 
and  total  emancipation.  .  .  .  There  may  be  others  of  whom  I 
am  uninformed.  And  this  is  the  whole  number  ...  to  do  this 
mighty  work  in  which  we  have  to  meet  the  strongest  interests 
and  talents. 


ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IX  KENTUCKY.          151 

Oct.  1st. — A  very  prominent  and  wealthy  citizen,  a 
widower,  called  on  Mr.  Birney,  told  him  his  suit  to  a  Phila 
delphia  lady  had  been  rejected,  and,  as  he  understood,  be 
cause  of  his  being  a  slave-holder,  and  requested  Mr.  Birney 
to  write  the  lady  and  inform  her  she  might  manumit  his 
slaves  as  fast  as  she  pleased  if  she  would  marry  him.  As 
Mr.  Birney  was  a  kinsman  of  the  suitor  and  a  friend  of 
the  lady,  he  wrote  the  letter  as  desired. 

Oct.  6th. — Had  an  interview  with  Dr.  Munsell  and  disclosed 
to  him  my  plan  of  operations  prior  to  commencing  a  paper. 
Much  approved  by  him. 

Oct.  7th. — Attended  as  a  spectator  the  Presbytery  now  sitting 
in  Danville.  Saw  Professor  Buchanan,  who  told  me  that  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Shannon,  of  Shelbyville,  had  read  my  letter  to  the 
ministers  and  elders  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Kentucky, 
and  had  determined  to  come  up  to  the  synod  after  having  disen 
tangled  himself  from  slavery. 

Oct.  8th. — Synod  of  Kentucky  organized.  I  conversed  with 
several  members  on  the  subject  of  slavery. 

After  a  discussion  of  three  days,  a  resolution  was 
adopted  declaring  slavery  a  sin  and  to  favor  all  proper 
measures  for  voluntary,  gradual  emancipation.  The  vote 
stood :  Yeas,  56  ;  nays,  8  ;  non-liqiiet,  7.  The  year  be 
fore  a  weaker  resolution,  substituting  "  moral  evil "  for 
"  sin,"  had  been  postponed  indefinitely  by  a  vote  of  )Teas, 
41 ;  nays,  36 ;  non-liqnet,  1.  The  evident  advance  in 
opinion  was  very  encouraging  to  Mr.  Birney,  who  on  the 
evening  of  the  llth  addressed  the  public,  including  many 
members  of  the  synod,  at  the  Danville  Presbyterian 
Church  in  favor  of  abolition.  Among  the  converts  at 
this  meeting  was  the  Eev.  Mr.  Stamper,  the  local  Meth 
odist  preacher,  who  recanted  in  1836. 

Oct.  23d. — Received  a  letter  from  T.  D.  Weld,  informing  me 
of  his  appointment  as  agent  in  Ohio.*  He  is  a  man  of  great 

*  The  Pittsburg  "  Times,"  in  noticing  the  rapidly  increasing  audiences 
flocking  to  hear  a  course  of  lectures  by  Mr.  Weld  in  that  city  on  free 


152  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

mental  powers  and  the  most  simple-hearted  and  earnest  follower 
of  Christ  that  I  have  known.  .  .  .  Prepared  to-day  to  set  off  to 
Cincinnati  in  the  morning  to  attend  the  anniversaries  to  be  held 
there  next  week. 

At  Cincinnati  he  made  many  acquaintances  among 
men  prominent  in  the  various  benevolent  movements  of 
the  day,  and  was  much  gratified  by  the  numerous  indica 
tions  of  the  general  and  deep  interest  taken  at  the  J^orth 
in  his  movement  against  slavery  in  Kentucky.  He  then 
returned  home  to  continue  his  work,  and  especially  to 
prepare  for  the  publication  at  Danville  of  an  anti-slavery 
weekly  paper. 

J.  G.  Birney  to  Oerrit  Smith. 

Nov.  20,  1834. — .  .  .  I  do,  indeed,  thank  God  and  take  cour 
age.  Not  that  I  approve  of  what  the  synod  has  done  in  toto,  for 
it  has  declared  the  system  to  be  sinful  and  the  continuance  of  it 
not  so,  but  because  it  has  been  moved  at  all  toward  the  proper 
point.  There  is  no  room  for  despair,  for  if  God  continue  so  to 
prosper  the  cause  of  human  liberty  as  he  has  done  here  during 
the  last  year,  the  next  synod  will  witness,  if  not  the  absolute 
death  of  slavery,  at  least  its  convulsive  an/d  dying  throes  in  the 
Church  of  which  it  has  supervision.  .  .  -^Whatever  may  have 
been  the  errors  of  Northern  abolitionists  —  and  I  do  not  say 
they  have  been  exempt  from  them,  though  surely  with  liberal 
minds  the  persecution  and  abuse  they  have  suffered  furnish  no 
small  palliation — they  have  beyond  all  doubt  the  right  principle, 
and,  if  I  do  not  greatly  mistake,  they  are  now  using  it  with  mucli 
discretion  and  effect.  Do  you  not  think  it  probable  that  very 

discussion  and  slavery,  says  "  Mr.  Weld  is  one  of  Nature's  orators — not 
a  declaimer,  but  a  logician  of  great  tact  and  power.  His  inexhaustible 
fund  of  anecdote  and  general  information,  with  the  power  of  being  in 
tensely  pathetic,  enables  him  to  give  the  greatest  imaginable  interest  to 
the  subject.  His  powers  of  teaching  are  of  the  first  order — that  is,  his 
facility  for  generalizing  broadly  and  regularly,  for  passing  into  profound 
abstractions  and  bringing  his  wealth  of  ideas  into  beautiful  light  by  clear, 
striking,  and  familiar  illustrations." 


ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IN  KENTUCKY.          153 

gentle  and  calm  measures  would  not  have  been  sufficient  to  rouse 
up  from  its  torpor  the  public  sentiment  of  this  nation  ?  t  / 

...  In  the  present  state  of  things  surely  nothing  more  is 
wanting  than  the  kindest  and  most  Christian  course.  Why  not, 
then,  if  we  think  so,  act  upon  their  principle — gently  correct  by 
our  example  their  indiscretions  whenever  they  may  appear,  and 
thus  be  instrumental  in  bringing  patriots,  philanthropists,  and 
Christians  into  one  noble  and  dignified  and  swelling  stream  of 
action  for  God  and  our  country  ?  .  .  .  Should  you  desire,  .  .  . 
I  will  present  to  you  fully  all  my  views.  I  have  no  secret  as  to 
my  anti-slavery  operations.  There  is  no  item  in  my  contemplated 
action  on  the  public  mind  that  is  concealed.  I  am  at  present 
identified  with  no  free- State  anti-slavery  association.  I  think  it 
probable  that  for  some  time  to  come  I  may  remain  so.  My  ef 
forts  are  now  directed  to  an  organization  for  this  State.  I  am 
not  without  hope  that  one  may  be  gotten  up  by  next  spring. 
Should  this  turn  out  to  be  the  case,  the  next  movement  will  be 
to  get  up  a  paper  that  will  in  the  main  speak  the  sentiments  of 
the  society  and  serve  as  a  point  of  concentration  for  all  the  im 
mediate  emancipation  material  lying  scattered  throughout  the 
State. 

Same  to  Same. 

Danville,  Ey.,  Dec.  30,  1834.—.  •  •  I  shall  look  with  much 
interest  for  the  essays  about  to  be  published  (by  G.  S.)  in  the 
"  Journal  of  Freedom  " — the  more  because  you  say  that  on  the 
''immediate  emancipation"  doctrine  and  on  the  subject  of  anti- 
slavery  "there  will  in  all  probability  be  but  little  difference  in 
our  views."  .  .  .  There  is  an  aspect  in  which  colonization  has 
been  presented  to  my  mind  that  I  have  never  yet  discussed,  ex 
cept  in  conversation.  ...  It  is  this  :  The  best  way  to  promote 
the  kind  of  colonization  that  will  eventuate  in  Christianizing 
Africa — and,  of  course,  in  civilizing  it — is  to  grant  immediate 
emancipation  here  from  Christian  principle. 

He  develops  the  idea  that  intelligent  converted  negroes 
would  go  as  missionaries  : 

Let  colonization  become  strictly  missionary  in  its  character. 
.  *.  .  One  thought  more  on  this  subject  :  Emancipation,  to  be 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

blessed  of  God  and  safe,  must  proceed  from  love — love  to  God 
and  man— and  must  be  so  conducted  that  it  shall  excite  in  the 
bosoms  of  the  emancipated  love  for  our  principle  and  love  for  us. 

To  a  request  from  Gerrit  Smith  for  leave  to  publish 
one  of  his  letters,  he  says  : 

Of  the  letter  to  you,  I  have  no  copy.  I  have  so  much  writing 
to  do  that  really  I  have  not  time,  if  I  deemed  it  necessary,  to  copy 
my  letters.  Another  reason  why  I  do  not  :  I  express  no  opinion 
that  I  do  not  honestly  entertain.  If  I  have  said  anything  that  is 
erroneous,  I  am  always  willing,  when  convinced  of  the  error,  to 
retract  it.  The  only  doubt  I  have  about  the  propriety  of  pub 
lishing  it  is  that  I  wrote  it  without  expectation  of  such  a 
thing.  .  .  . 

There  is  yet  among  even  some  clever  and  firm  abolitionists 
here  a  little  fearfulness  of  what  has  been  called  ' '  the  fanaticism 
of  Northern  abolitionists."  However,  I  think  it  will  in  no  very 
long  time  disappear,  and  there  will  be  a  full  fraternization.  .  .  . 
I  think  it  not  improbable,  my  dear  friend,  that  I  may  have  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  you  in  the  city  of  New  York  next  spring.  .  .  . 
How  heartily  and  thankfully  would  I  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  a 
long,  long  conversation  with  you  on  the  great  subject  to  which 
God,  1  trust,  has  called  us  both  !  ...  Ah  !  if  I  were  to  quarrel 
with  all  who  differ  from  me  here  on  the  subject  that  now  so  fully 
occupies  my  mind  and  interests  my  feelings,  or  were  I  to  feel 
uncharitably  toward  them,  I  might  always  be  unhappy  and 
cheerless ! 

Of  Mr.  Smith's  "  Essays,"  he  says  : 

I  do  not  know  of  any  paper  in  Kentucky  that  would  pub 
lish  them. 

Jan.  31,  1835.— Of  the  sixty-four-page  pamphlet,  "  Re 
port  of  the  Synod  Committee  on  Slavery,"  written  by 
President  Young,  and  recommending  a  plan  of  gradual 
emancipation,*  he  writes  to  Gerrit  Smith : 

*  For  this  plan,  see  Davidson's  "  History  of  the  Kentucky  Presby- 
byterian  Church,"  p.  339,  and  Stanton's  "  The  Church  and  the  Rebellion," 


ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IX  KENTUCKY.          155 

I  am  now  almost  daily  contemplating  the  injury  it  has  done 
to  the  cause  of  emancipation  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  I 
know  of  several  instances  of  brethren  whose  minds  were  earnestly 
inquiring  for  the  truth  in  relation  to  the  sin  of  slavery  who  have 
to  all  appearance  sunk  to  sleep  from  the  anodyne  he  has  admin 
istered.  Young  showed  me  his  manuscript  before  he  sent  it  to 
Cincinnati  to  be  published.  I  thought,  as  an  argument,  it  was 
grossly  sophistical  and  unworthy  of  his  mind.  I  besought  him, 
as  a  brother,  to  abstain  from  its  publication.  ...  I  was  anxious 
that  he  should  not  commit  himself  before  the  nation  on  the  side 
of  the  slave-holder.  He  did  refrain  for  a  week.  ...  I  have  just 
come  from  his  house,  after  a  conversation  of  an  hour  or  two  con 
taining  nothing  encouraging  as  to  his  entertainment  of  more  cor 
rect  views.  I  do  very  much  lament  his  course  ;  I  wanted  to  see 
him  eminently  useful.  .  .  . 

While  I  was  at  Frankfort,  Judge  Underwood  delivered  the 
annual  colonization  address.  It  was  intended  as  an  answer  to 
the  abolitionist  and  to  demonstrate  the  practicability  of  ex 
terminating  Kentucky  slavery  by  African  colonization.  His 
knowledge  of  abolitionism  was  very  crude.  In  a  few  instances 
he  was  illiberal  ;  in  the  main,  he  is  a  liberal  man. 

Underwood's  plan  was  for  Kentucky  to  expend  one 
hundred  and  forty  thousand  dollars  yearly  in  the  trans 
portation  of  four  thousand  negroes — girls  and  youths  from 
seventeeen  to  twenty  years  of  age.  This,  continued  for 
fifty  years,  would  rid  the  State  of  slaves.  Mr.  Birney  V 
asks: 

Will  the  people  of  the  State  give  up  this  year,  for  the  purpose 
of  colonization,  four  thousand  slaves,  at  the  ages  when  they  are 
most  valuable,  when  human  flesh  is  selling  in  the  Kentucky 
market  for  about  four  to  five  dollars  a  pound  ?  And  will  they 

p.  423.  The  pamphlet  was  a  powerful  and  faithful  exposure  of  slavery, 
with  the  lame  conclusion  of  gradualism.  John  C.  Young,  D.  D.,  Presi 
dent  of  Centre  College,  was  always  acute,  ingenious,  and  eloquent.  His 
wife  was  the  daughter  of  J.  Cabell  Breckenridge.  That  fact  and  his 
many  amiable  traits  had  endeared  him  greatly  to  Mr.  Birney  as  a  friend. 


156  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

give  from  the  State  coffers  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  dol 
lars  for  their  transportation  to  Africa  ?  ...  It  is  by  holding  up 
such  schemes  as  this,  by  exhibiting  such  arithmetical  benevolence, 
that  the  Northern  professed  friends  of  freedom  are  beguiling  the 
slave  States  from  that  repentance  which  would  save  them.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  think  it  probable  that  I  shall  review  your  essays.  I  read 
the  first  (published  in  the  "Emancipator")'  with  great  pleasure. 
.  .  .  Would  that  our  excellent  Brother  Bacon  [Dr.  Leonard  G. 
Bacon]  could  see  his  error  !  He  does  us  great  damage.  The 
slave-holder  lays  hold  of  any  doctrine  that  furnishes  the  least 
shadow  of  excuse,  and  holds  to  it  with  the  tenacity  of  a  drown 
ing  man.  Notwithstanding  the  declaration  and  resolutions  of 
the  synod,  which  sat  here,  since  that  time  slaves  have  been  sold 
to  the  Southern  slaver  by  a  member  of  the  Danville  Church. 


J.    G.  Birney  to  Lewis  Tappan. 


\ 


Danville,  Feb.  3,  1835. — I  returned  a  few  days  since  from 
Frankfort.  ...  I  heard  while  there  most  of  the  debates  on  the 
"  Convention  Bill,"  into  which  the  subject  of  slavery  and  eman 
cipation  always  entered.  I  conversed  on  these  subjects  with 
many  of  the  members  of  the  Legislature  as  well  as  with  other 
intelligent  gentlemen  from  different  parts  of  the  State.  The 
conclusion  to  which  my  mind  has  been  brought  is  this,  that 
emancipation  in  some  form  or  another — in  most  instances,  in  the 
crudest  form  imaginable — occupies  the  mind  of  this  community ; 
and  that  the  feeling  in  favor  of  it  is  growing.  ...  I  am  not 
without  hope  that  the  subject  of  emancipation  will  be  taken  up 
in  many  parts  of  the  State  by  the  candidates  for  the  next  Gen 
eral  Assembly.  .  .  .  With  the  political  action  of  political  men 
and  the  holy  action  of  religious  men  there  is  no  inconsistency 
that  is  irreconcilable.  That  the  oppressor's  reign  should  end 
from  any  principle  should  cause  us  to  rejoice. 

On  the  19th  of  March,  1835,  the  Kentucky  Anti-Slav 
ery  Society  was  organized  at  Danville.  It  numbered  forty 
members,  most  of  them  intelligent  men,  and  all  respecta 
ble.  Some  of  them  had  been  slave-holders.  Before  May, 
the  number  was  increased  to  forty- five.  To  effect  this 


x  ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IX  KENTUCKY.          157 

organization,  Mr.   Birney   had   devoted   much  time   and 
energy.  , 

J.   G.  Birney  to  Gerrit  Smith. 

Danville,  March  21,  1835. — .  .  .  I  have  been  very  much  en 
gaged  for  the  last  month,  not  only  in  preparing  for  the  organiza: 
tion  of  our  State  Anti- Slavery  Society,  but  in  actually  discussing 
publicly  the  merits  of  "  immediate  emancipation."  Within  that 
time,  I  have  had  two  debates  some  distance  from  home,  in  which 
my  chief  adversary  was  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  an  aged  and 
influential  minister.  .  .  .  Between  two  and  three  weeks  since 
I  undertook  to  review  in  our  Danville  Lyceum,  in  the  wray  of 
lecture,  the  letter  of  President  Young  on  slavery.  I  gave  no 
tice  in  the  newspapers  of  the  village,  that  all  who  felt  an  interest 
in  the  subject  of  it  should  read  and  understand  the  letter  that 
they  might  come  prepared  to  appreciate  the  arguments  with 
which  the  principles  would  be  met  and  to  detect  any  fallacy  or 
sophistry  more  easily,  if  any  should  be  attempted  by  me.  I  was 
a  long  time  in  exposing,  as  I  thought  it  was  easy  to  do,  the  falla 
cies  of  his  letter.  He  was  present  and  so  stung  that  he  asked 
an  adjournment  of  the  lyceum  till  the  next  evening,  when  he 
would  undertake  to  reply.  He  did  so.  I  think  his  effort  was 
not  considered  a  successful  one  in  vindication  of  his  cause.  .  .  . 
He  greatly  abused  abolitionism,  and,  in  speaking  of  Mr.  Gar 
rison,  he  out- Garrisoned  Garrison  himself.  He  went  so  far  as  to 
say  he  would  not  be  an  abolitionist  because  Mr.  Garrison 
was  one.  L  .  . 

Although  I  am  in  the  midst  of  enemies  (though  I  must  say, 
not  personal,  unless  they  have  transferred  their  malignant  feel 
ings  from  the  cause  of  freedom  to  its  advocate),  and  am  often 
much  perplexed,  yet,  altogether,  I  have  never  had  so  much 
peace.  .  .  .  The  day  before  yesterday  was  organized  the  "Ken 
tucky  State  Anti- Slavery  Society,  auxiliary  to  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,"  with  Prof.  Buchanan,*  of  Centre  College,  as  its 
president.  Our  proceedings  were  very  harmonious  among  our 
selves  and  uninterrupted  f  from  without.  The  fifty  dollars  which 

*  lie  had  just  manumitted  his  three  slaves. 

f  There  would  have  been  few  mobs  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  wire- 
working  of  politicians. 


158  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

you  thought  proper  to  confide  to  my  discretion  for  the  advance 
ment  of  the  cause  of  immediate  emancipation,  I  have  devoted  to 
paying  the  expenses  of  printing  and  distributing  our  proceed 
ings.  .  .  .  Immediate  emancipation  will  have  to  be  sustained 
here  by  the  comparatively  poor  and  humble.  The  aristocracy, 
created  and  sustained  by  slavery,  will  be  ugly  enemies — aye,  and 
they  will  be  so  almost  to  our  extermination.  .  .  .  I  do  not  think 
there  is  good  reason  for  your  refusing  to  give  your  name  and  in 
fluence  to  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society. 

He  refers  to  his  wife's  bad  health  as  making  it  doubt 
ful  whether  he  could  attend  the  anti-slavery  anniversary 
in  New  York,  on  May  13th,  but  "  should  her  situation 
allow  of  my  leaving  her,  it  is  my  intention  to  be  at  Zanes- 
ville,  Ohio,  at  a  meeting  of  the  convention  "  (April  22nd, 
to  form  a  State  anti-slavery  society). 

The  state  of  public  opinion  in  Kentucky  in  the  spring 
of  1835  has  some  light  thrown  upon  it  by  the  following 
report,  in  the  "  New  England  Spectator,"  of  statements 
by  Mr.  Birney,  at  Boston,  in  May  : 

Mr.  Birney  stated  that  he  had  recently  received  a  letter  from 
Kentucky,  which  stated  that  the  subject  of  immediate  emanci 
pation  is  greatly  talked  about.  A  discussion  of  the  subject  has 
recently  been  had  in  the  Young  Men's  Institute  of  Louisville.  He 
(Mr.  Birney)  had  been  written  to  to  take  a  part  in  the  debate,  it 
not  being  known  that  he  had  left  [for  the  East].  Dr.  Marshall, 
brother  of  the  Chief  Justice,  stated  that  so  strong  is  the  impres 
sion  against  slavery  in  Louisville,  that  when  a  slave-holder  re 
cently  wished  to  lay  claim  to  a  colored  man  in  Louisville,  the 
affair  was  so  unpopular  that  he  wished  the  privilege  of  prose 
cuting  his  claim  in  another  place. 

No  hinderance  whatever  is  thrown  in  the  way  of  our  meetings. 
The  church  in  Danville  was  freely  given  to  me  for  the  convention 
(to  form  a  State  anti-slavery  society).  The  pastor  of  the  church, 
although  opposed  to  me  on  this  subject,  yet  gave  notice  of  my 
lectures  held  in  that  place.  No  church  in  that  State  has  ever 
been  refused  me.  (Appendix  to  "  American  Report,  1835,"  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  p.  78.) 


ANTI-SLAVERY  WORK  IX  KENTUCKY.          159 

On  the  same  occasion  he  said  of  the  race  prejudice 
against  the  negro : 

There  is  less  negro  hatred  in  the  slave  than  in  the  free  States. 
They  are  subject  to  more  insult  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former.* 

*  At  that  time  a  colored  person  could  travel  in  the  stage-coaches  of 
the  South,  but  was  excluded  from  public  conveyances  in  the  North.  As 
late  as  1864,  colored  servants  in  attendance  on  ladies  and  carrying  white 
children  were  driven  from  street-cars  in  Philadelphia — a  brutality  with 
out  example  in  the  South. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

A    WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION. 

* 
APRIL,  1835. 

EVENTS  not  foreseen  by  Mr.  Birney  attracted  the  atten 
tion  of  the  whole  country  to  him  and  his  operations  in 
Kentucky  after  the  general  publication  of  his  letter  on 
colonization,  in  July,  1834.  The  emancipation  of  eight 
hundred  thousand  slaves  in  the  British  West  Indies,  on 
the  first  of  August  in  that  year,  had  made  the  abolition 
of  slavery  the  topic  of  universal  discussion  in  the  United 
States.  That  measure  revived  the  memories  of  the  eman 
cipation  of  half  a  million  in  those  islands  by  the  first  re 
public  of  France ;  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  by  Chili,  in 
1811 ;  by  Buenos  Ayres,  in  1813  ;  by  Columbia,  in  1821 ; 
at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  in  1823  ;  by  New  York,  in 
1827;  and  by  Mexico,  in  1829.  There  were  rumors  of 
prospective  abolition  in  Brazil  and  of  the  emancipation  of 
the  serfs  in  Russia.  The  outlook  was  that  the  states  of 
this  republic  and  the  monarchy  of  Spain  would  be  the 
last  governments  to  maintain  slavery.  In  the  contem 
poraneous  language  of  a  frank  South  Carolina  member 
of  Congress,  "  The  sentiment  of  the  Christian  world  is 
against  slavery."  That  the  great  majority  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  shared  this  sentiment  is  also  true.  Every  State 
Constitution  contained  bills  of  rights  and  guarantees  of 
personal  freedom.  Every  court  administered  justice  gen- 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  Id 

erally  on  the  principle  of  equality  of  rights  before  the  law. 
The  orator,  the  teacher,  and  the  preacher  insisted  alike 
upon  justice  between  individuals.  Slavery  was  the  one 
horrible  exception  to  American  law  and  the  American 
sense  of  right. 

This  exception  was  maintained  by  a  small  minority  of 
the  people  of  the  South.  De  Bow,  a  pro- slavery  writer, 
makes  the  following  admissions : 

"  I  am  satisfied  that  the  non-slave-holders  far  outnum 
ber  the  slave-holders  perhaps  by  three  to  one."  * 

According  to  the  same  author,  there  were,  in  1850, 
only  7,929  slave-holders  owning  each  more  than  fifty 
slaves.  In  1833  the  whole  number  of  slave-holders  did 
not  exceed  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand.  But  they 
possessed  the  rich  lands  and  the  wealth  of  the  Southern 
States ;  and  their  intelligence,  social  position,  and  identity 
of  interest  enabled  them  when  united  to  control  nomina 
tions  to  office  and  the  use  of  the  political  power  of  the 
South.  The  machinations  of  Calhoun  and  his  friends, 
after  the  defeat  of  nullification,  to  bring  slavery  to  the 
front  as  a  political  question,  were  powerfully  aided  by  the 
emancipation  legislation  of  Great  Britain.  The  slave 
holders  drew  together  under  this  double  pressure.  Brave 
and  self-reliant,  they  defied  the  moral  power  of  Christen 
dom  ;  and,  determined  to  present  an  unbroken  front,  they 
tolerated  neither  criticism  nor  debate  nor  the  non-com- 
mittalism  of  silence.  Between  1833  and  the  summer  of 
1835,  the  ordinary  lines  of  political  parties  were  effaced  in 
the  South,  so  far  as  slavery  was  concerned;  Whigs  and 
Democrats  vied  with  each  other  in  professions  of  loyalty 
to  the  slave-power ;  and_jiavotion  to  slavery  became  the 
test  of  Southern-patriotism.  The  obliteration  of  all  anti-  .. 
slavery  societies,  in  the  slave  States, 'which  had  begun  with 

*  2  "  Resources  of  the  South  and  West,"  p.  106.  See  also  Van  Hoist, 
"  State  Sovereignty,"  p.  342  and  note. 


1G2  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

tli£__election  of  Jackson,  became  an  accomplished. ..fact. 
Fcee_speech .had  perished  at  the  South  in  1835. 

But  there  was  one  exception — Kentucky.  Tongue  and 
pen  were  still  free  in  many  parts  of  that  State.  Many  of 
the  churches  were  open  to  anti-slavery  speakers ;  crowds 
listened  to  discussions  of  abolition ;  several  newspapers 
admitted  able  anti-slavery  essays  to  their  columns.  The 
synod  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  had  published  the  most 
eloquent  arraignment  of  slavery  ever  issued  by  an  ecclesi 
astical  body  and  a  recommendation  of  emancipation  hardly 
falling  short  of  immediate  abolition ;  and  forty  respectable 
men,  most  of  them  ex-slave-holders,  ha.d  formed  a  State 
society  auxiliary  to  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society ! ! 

This  formidable  movement,  menacing  the  labor  system 
of  the  South,  had  for  its  soul  and  leader  a  native  South 
erner,  a  man  of  conscience  and  courage,  an  ex-slave 
holder,  a  lawyer,  and  statesman.  In  1834-'35  the  Morde- 
cai  in  the  king's  gate  for  the  slave  power  was  James  G. 
Birney. 

For  the  Northern  States,  he  was  the  observed  of  all  ob 
servers.  He  was  the^only  abolitionist  who  was  grappling 
with  slavery  in  a  slave  State  ;  and  the  imagination  of  the 
masses  attributed  to  him  all  the  qualities  of  a  heroic  soul, 
while  the  intelligent  admired  his  firmness,  moderation, 
freedom  from  exaggeration,  and  thorough  knowledge  of 
his  subject. 

His  famous  "  Letter  "  had  brought  him  numerous  mes 
sages  and  assurances  of  sympathy,  encouragement,  and 
admiration  from  all  parts  of  the  North.  Friendly  travelers 
had  called  on  him  at  his  home ;  several  prominent  aboli 
tionists  had  visited  him  there,  and  he  received  from  many 
residents  of  Northern  cities  invitations  to  speak  on  slavery 
in  those  places,  with  assurances  of  good  halls  and  large 
audiences.  Among  these  correspondents  were  Mr.  Gazzam, 
of  Pittsburg ;  David  Paul  Brown,  of  Philadelphia ;  Judge 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  163 

William  Jay,  of  New  York  ;  and  William  Ellery  Charming, 
of  Boston.  The  prominent  abolitionists  of  Ohio  were 
anxious  that  he  should  be  present  at  the  formation  in 
April  of  the  State  Anti-Slavery  Society ;  and  the  Tappans 
and  Joshua  Leavitt  were  urgent  for  his  attendance  at  the 
May  anniversary  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  to 
which  he  had  been  appointed  delegate  from  Kentucky. 

Yielding  to  these  requests,  he  left  home  for  Cincinnati, 
reaching  that  city  April  17,  1835,  and  taking  lodgings  at 
the  Henry  House,  which  was  situated  on  Third  near  Main 
Street,  in  the  central  part  of  the  city.  His  arrival  was 
announced  in  the  daily  papers.  He  was  met  at  the  hotel 
by  several  prominent  anti-slavery  lecturers,  and  he  re 
mained  there  more  than  two  days,  during  which  time  he 
received  a  large  number  of  visitors,  among  whom  were 
Salmon  P.  Chase  and  Dr.  Gr.  Bailey.  His  presence  in  the 
city  excited  curiosity  and  interest,  but  there  was  no  indi 
cation  of  a  mob  spirit.  He  was  pressed  to  lecture  in 
one  of  the  churches,  but  refused  because  of  want  of  time 
to  give  the  notices  required ;  and  then,  in  company  with 
the  Hamilton  County  delegation,  he  journeyed  by  stage 
coach  to  Zanesville  to  aid  in  the  formation  of  a  State 
society  which  should  be  auxiliary  to  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society.  The  local  societies  in  Ohio  had  generally 
been  independent,  each  acting  on  its  own  plan. 

The  convention  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  ten  dele 
gates,  representing  Anti- Slavery  societies  in  twenty-five 
counties.  Among  the  societies  not  represented  were  some 
of  the  oldest  in  the  State.  They  had  been  established 
without  concert,  at  different  times,  under  different  names, 
and  with  constitutions  framed  on  no  common  model ;  and 
never  having  affiliated  with  each  other  for  concerted 
action,  they  were  now  reluctant  to  place  themselves  under 
the  control  of  State  and  national  societies  of  recent  origin, 
a  step  that  would  apparently  compel  them  to  change  their 


164  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

names  and  constitutions  and  take  date  from  the  change. 
This  last  concession  was  not  made,  even  in  subsequent 
years,  by  such  old  societies  as  the  Mount  Pleasant,  the 
West  Union,  the  Monroe  County,  or  the  Ripley,  which 
was  the  oldest  of  all ;  and  when  these  became  auxiliary, 
they  stood  without  date  of  origin  on  the  records  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  (See  its  "Annual  Re 
ports  "  for  1836-'3S.)  The  date  of  the  organization  of  the 
first  abolition  society  at  Bethel  is  unknown.  It  was  not 
later  than  the  Missouri  Controversy.  The  town  was  laid 
out  in  1797,  by  Obed  Denham,  from  Kentucky,  a  Baptist 
abolitionist.  In  his  deed  of  dedication  and  plat  of  the 
village  (see  Clermont  County  Records)  occurs  this  sen 
tence  : 

I  also  give  two  in-lots,  Nos.  80  and  108,  for  the  use  of  the 
regular  Baptist  Church,  who  do  not  hold  slaves,  nor  commune  at 
the  Lord's  table  with  those  that  do  practice  such  tyranny  over 
their  fellow-creatures. 

The  men  who  migrated  from  Kentucky  with  Obed 
Denham — the  Becks,  Frazees,  Burkes,  and  others — were 
as  stanch  Baptists  and  abolitionists  as  he  was ;  and  their 
first  preachers,  the  Rev.  Moses  Hutchins,  and  his  successor, 
the  Rev.  Moses  Edwards,*  always  kept  the  banners  well  ad 
vanced.  When  the  Bethel  Society  was  reorganized  in  1836, 
James  Denham,  a  grandson  of  Obed,  was  the  secretary. 

Lundy  had  organized  the  Mount  Pleasant  Society  in 
1815 ;  and  Rev.  Dyer  Burgess  that  of  West  Union  about 
1818.  We  do  not  know  when  the  Aiding  Abolition  So 
ciety  of  Monroe  County  was  formed ;  but,  on  the  24th  of 
June,  1826,  its  chairman  and  secretary  published  in 
Lundy's  paper  a  two-column  "  Memorial  "  beginning  with 
these  words : 

*  He  officiated  as  clergyman  at  the  marriage  of  Gen.  Grant's  father 
to  Hannah  Simpson,  June  22,  1821. 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  165 

"  Convinced  of  the  iniquity  of  slavery  in  all  its  bear 
ings,  as  attached  to  the  colored  race,  and  having  associated 
together  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the  immediate  aboli 
tion  thereof  "  etc. 

The  Ripley  Society,  which  had  been  formed  early  in  the 
century,  set  the  good  example  to  the  older  societies  of 
sending  delegates. 

The  society  at  Zanesville  had  been  formed  in  1826 
as  the  Emancipation  Society,  its  expressed  object  being 
"  the  total  extinction  of  slavery  in  the  United  States  at  .the 
earliest  practicable  period  "  (MS.).  It  had  been  reformed 
July  4,  1833,  as  the  United  States  Constitution  Society.  * 
with  the  expression  of  the  object  strengthened  by  substi 
tuting  "  abolition  "  for  "  extinction,"  and  "possible  "  for 
"  practicable."  This  society  had  called  the  convention. 

The  Columbiana  Abolition  Society  had  been  organ 
ized  January  6,  1827,  and  in  the  first  three  months  num 
bered  five  hundred  members.  Its  doctrine  was  abolition, 
without  condition  or  qualification.  (See  "Genius"  of 
April  14,  1827.)  It  sent  delegates.  When  it  became 
auxiliary  to  the  American  Society,  it  refused  to  take  a 
date  and  stood  on  its  old  record.  A  few  persons  took 
seats,  not  as  delegates,  but  as  recognized  abolitionists. 
Two  of  them  were  members  of  the  Methodist  Reformed 
Church,  which,  in  1826,  had  adopted  the  following 
rule  : 

Article  8th.  No  person  holding  a  slave  shall  be  admitted  into 
this  society  on  any  condition.  Any  member  of  the  society  buy 
ing  a  slave  shall  be  immediately  expelled  from  it.  All  persons 
receiving  money  as  heirs,  in  consequence  of  the  sale  of  slaves, 
shall  be  immediately  expelled  from  the  society. f 

*  In  1836  it  became  the  Putnam  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  dates 
from  that  year  on  the  records  of  the  American  Society. 

f  "  London  Anti-Slavery,  Reporter,"  for  July,  1827,  which  copies  it 
from  Lundv'a  "  Genius." 


166  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Three  of  them  were  members  of  the  Associate  Keformed 
Presbyterian  Church,  which,  in  1831,  had  settled  the  form 
of  its  rule  against  slavery  as  follows : 

No  member  shall,  from  and  after  this  date,  be  allowed  to 
hold  a  human  being  in  the  character  and  condition  of  a  slave. 
("Life  of  Dr.  Crothers,"  p.  181). 

Of  the  veterans  who  had  fought  the  battles  of  imme 
diate  abolition  in  Ohio  for  more  than  ten  years,  there 
were  present  one  farmer,  John  B.  Mahan,  of  Brown 
County;  two  business  men,  Col.  Eobert  Stewart,  of  Eoss 
County,  and  Col.  William  Keys,  of  Highland;  and  five 
clergymen,  John  Rankin,  Samuel  Crothers,  William 
Dickey,  James  II.  Dickey,  and  John  Wallace,  all  members 
of  the  Chillicothe  Presbytery,  *  and  all  immigrants  from 
slave  States.  Levi  Whipple,  Horace  Nye,  and  Henry  C. 
Howell  had  been  in  the  ranks  more  than  five  years.  Elizur 
Wright  had  been  publicly  active  in  the  cause  since  1831. 
The  Lane  Seminary  group  present  was  composed  of  Theo 
dore  D.  Weld,  Henry  B.  Stanton,  James  A.  Thome,  Horace 
Bushnell,  Augustus  Wattles,  and  William  T.  Allan  (Ala 
bama).  Morgan  County  sent  Hiram  Wilson,  who  was  so  wide 
ly  known  in  after  years  as  the  devoted  missionary  to  the 
colored  refugees  in  Canada  ;  and  Cincinnati  sent  Augustus 
Wattles,  who,  as  superintendent  of  the  colored  schools  in 
that  city,  had,  with  his  self-denying  coadjutors,  achieved 
a  great  work  of  elevation  and  reform  for  the  negro  popu 
lation.  John  B.  Mahan,  a  tall,  muscular,  raw-boned,  stal 
wart,  and  swarthy  man  of  middle  age,  had  long  been  one 
of  the  most  active  friends  of  fugitive  negroes.  He  was  a 
farmer  and  local  Methodist  preacher.  He  had  not  been 
in  a  slave  State  since  childhood ;  but,  from  about  1820, 
any  man  fleeing  from  bondage  could  rely  upon  his  hospi- 

*  In  1826  this  Presbytery  issued  a  pamphlet  on  the  evils  of  slavery 
and  the  duty  of  masters  to  free  their  slaves. 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  167 

tality  and  protection.  His  strength  and  courage,  tested 
in  sundry  conflicts  with  slave-catchers,  had  given  them  a 
salutary  respect  for  him.  He  knew  reliable  friends  in  the 
counties  adjoining  his  own  to  whom  he  could  confide  fugi 
tives.  In  1826  a  close  connection  was  formed  by  him  and 
his  associates  with  Levi  Coffin  (see  "  Coffin's  Reminis 
cences,"  page  108)  and  other  Quakers  in  Wayne  County, 
Indiana.  An  earlier  one  had  been  established  with  West 
ern  Xew  York  in  order  to  baffle  the  slave-catchers  who 
were  stationed  at  Detroit ;  and,  after  1826,  the  recapture 
of  a  fugitive  negro  who  could  cross  the  Ohio  River  and 
get  five  miles  north  of  it,  was  a  rare  occurrence.  In  emer 
gencies  the  house  of  any  Quaker  was  a  refuge  ;  no  questions 
were  asked,  food  and  lodging  were  quietly  given,  and  the 
traveler  was  speeded  on  his  way  in  the  safest  manner.  * 
Mahan  was  a  taciturn  man ;  he  was  no  boaster,  but  his 
somber  piety  and  bravery  would  have  endeared  him  to 
Oliver  Cromwell.  Before  the  convention  was  over  he  was 
appreciated  by  his  fellow-members,  f 

Rev.  Samuel  Cr others  was  a  Presbyterian  preacher. 
He  had  been  brought  up  in  Kentucky,  and  left  that  State 
in  1810,  when  he  was  twenty-eight  years  of  age.  For  ten 
years  he  was  a  pastor  in  Ross  County.  In  1820  he  took 
charge  of  the  church  at  Greenfield,  Highland  County,  and 
kept  it  for  thirty-six  years.  His  moral  and  political,  as 
well  as  his  religious  influence  was  very  great  in  that  part 
of  Ohio.  From  his  entrance  into  the  State  (we  have  no 

*  Friend  Butterworth,  a  Warren  County  Quaker,  who  had  come  with 
a  covered  wagon  to  Cincinnati,  was  asked  in  my  hearing  in  1838,  "Can 
you  take  a  poor  man  as  passenger  ?  "  "  Yea,  I  have  room."  The  place 
was  named  for  taking  him.  "  I  will  call  for  him  at  eight."  This  was  all. 
But  it  saved  a  man  who  was  hard  beset. 

f  September  17,  1838,  he  was  kidnapped  and  taken  to  Kentucky  to 
be  tried  on  a  charge  of  stealing  slaves.  Acquitted  on  the  criminal  charge, 
his  friends  paid  the  amount  of  the  bond  in  a  civil  suit,  rather  than  risk 
Kentucky  justice. 


168  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

record  of  his  life  in  Kentucky)  he  was  known  as  an  im 
mediate  abolitionist,  in  full  sympathy  with  Gilliland, 
Burgess,  Rankin,  and  the  Dickeys.  His  sermons  on  the 
subject  have  not  been  preserved,  but  we  have  from  his 
pen  fifteen  letters  published  between  1827  and  1831  and 
republished  in  1831,  entitled  "An  Appeal  to  Patriots  and 
Christians  in  Behalf  of  the  Enslaved  Africans."  The 
sturdiness  and  thoroughness  of  his  abolitionism  is  mani 
fested  in  his  striking  answer  to  the  apology,  "  It  is  neces 
sary  to  keep  the  Africans  in  slavery  to  avoid  the  evils  of 
emancipation."  He  tolerated  no  instant  of  sin.  He  likens 
it  to  the  fabled  apology  of  a  certain  Scotch  clan  for  steal 
ing  :  "  We  are  an  honest  race  of  people ;  we  never  steal— 
except  a  little  now  and  then,  for  a  living."  When  Presi 
dent  Young,  of  Centre  College,  published  his  plea  for 
gradualism,  Dr.  Crothers  answered  in  five  letters,  pub 
lished  early  in  1835.  Those  letters  were  logical,  witty, 
and  sarcastic ;  they  utterly  riddled  Dr.  Young's  house  of 
cards.  There  was  no  speaker  or  writer  in  the  anti- 
slavery  ranks  between  1825  and  1835  who  dug  down 
quicker  or  with  surer  stroke  to  the  primal  granite  than 
Dr.  Crothers.* 

The  most  noted  abolitionist  in  the  convention  was- 
doubtless  John  Rankin.  WThen  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
was  asked  after  the  war,  "  Who  abolished  slavery  ?  "  he  is 
said  to  have  answered,  "  Rev.  John  Rankin  and  his  sons 
did  it." 

.The  humor  of  the  answer  lies  in  its  quaint  exaggera 
tion  of  the  effects  of  the  services  rendered  to  the  cause  by 
Rankin.  These  were  very  great.  Many  Western  men 
have  called  him  "  the  father  of  abolitionism,"  and  it  was 
not  an  uncommon  thing  in  the  thirties  to  hear  him  called 
"  the  Martin  Luther"  of  the  cause.  In  1827,  the  year  in 

*  Ritchie's  "  Life  of  Dr.  Crothers." 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  169 

which  New  York  abolished  slavery  within  her  limits,  John 
Rankin  was  one  of  the  five  most  prominent  advocates  in 
this  country  of  immediate  abolition.  He  was  also  one  of 
the  earliest.  Charles  Osborn  and  Rev.  George  Bourne 
date  as  abolitionists  from  1814,  John  Rankin  and  Benja 
min  Lundy  from  1815,  and  Rev.  James  Duncan  from 
about  1820.  Of  the  many  thousands  who  joined  the 
modern  anti  -  slavery  movement  within  the  first  twelve 
years  after  its  revival  at  the  close  of  the  War  of  1812, 
these  five  names  have  been  most  familiar  to  abolitionists, 
and  the  two  brightest  are  those  of  Lundy  and  Rankin. 

John  Rankin,  born  Feb.  4, 1793  ;  died  March  18, 1886, 
a  native  of  East  Tennessee,  was  graduated  at  Washington 
College  in  1816,  and  licensed  to  preach  in  1817.  Having 
become  an  immediate  abolitionist  in  1815,  he  persuaded 
Dr.  Doak,  whose  daughter . he  married  soon  after,  to  manu 
mit  his  slaves.  In  November,  1817,  he  left  Tennessee, 
intending  to  go  to  Ohio,  but,  being  unable  to  get  farther 
than  Carlisle,  Nicholas  County,  Ky.,  he  preached  there 
during  the  winter  and  became  pastor  of  the  church  in 
April,  1818. 

In  the  next  three  years  he  organized  at  Carlisle  and 
other  places  in  Kentucky  societies  auxiliary  to  the  "  Ken 
tucky  Abolition  Society,"  *  which  had  been  established  in 
1807.  In  a  speech  at  the  anniversary  meeting,  May,  1839, 
of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  Mr.  Rankin  said : 

*  R.  M.  Johnson,  of  Kentucky,  afterward  Vice  President,  may  have 
been  a  member.  In  his  speech  on  the  Missouri  question,  Feb.  1,  1820, 
reported  in  the  "National  Intelligencer"  of  April  29,  1820,  he  advises: 
"  Encourage  Sunday-schools,  multiply  Bible  societies,  increase  missionary 
exertions,  animate  to  deeds  of  benevolence  abolition  societies,  .  .  .  and 
you  will  perform  the  duties  of  Christians  and  patriots,"  etc. 

In  Lundy's  "Genius,"  of  October,  1822,  is  printed  a  circular  "sent 
down  by  the  Abolition  Society  of  Kentucky  at  their  late  convention  to 
the  several  branches."     It  is  dated  Maysville,  Sept.  12,  1822,  and  signed 
by  Hugh  Wiley,  President,  and  E.  Duncan,  Jr.,  Secretary. 
9 


170  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

"  I  rejoice  in  the  triumph  of  the  principles  of  immediate 
emancipation  because,"  etc.  ..."  I  was  a  member  of  an 
anti-slavery  society  in  Kentucky  twenty  years  ago  on  the 
same  principle  as  this.  The  doctrine  of  immediate  eman 
cipation  is  said  to  be  new,  but  societies  were  formed  all 
over  the  country  twenty  years  ago,  and  many  members  of 
these  societies  advocated  this  same  doctrine."  In  January, 
1822,  Mr.  Rankin  became  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  at  Eipley,  Ohio,  and  held  the  place  thirty-three 
years.  Most  of  the  members  of  his  church  in  Kentucky 
removed  before  1830  to  Decatur  County,  Indiana,  to  es 
cape  the  evil  of  slavery,  and  these  formed  a  church  of 
which  one  of  his  sons  has  been  pastor  for  more  than 
twenty-five  years.  Between  1822  and  1830  he  preached 
and  lectured  against  slavery.  In  1823  he  published  a 
series  of  letters  on  slavery  in  the  "  Castigator,"  Eipley, 
Ohio.  They  were  republished  in  book-form  in  1824,  and 
passed  through  many  editions,  several  of  which  were  is 
sued  by  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  In  1830 
and  several  previous  years,  the  abolition  books  of  largest 
circulation  in  the  United  States  were  those  by  Rankin, 
Bourne,  Duncan,  and  Stroud.  During  the  year  1836  Mr. 
Rankin  was  a  traveling  lecturer  in  the  employ  of  the  na 
tional  society,  and  at  a  later  date  he  was  made  one  of  its 
managers  for  Ohio.  His  house  at  Ripley  was  situated 
near  the  town  on  a  hill  about  three  hundred  feet  high, 
and  was  visible  at  a  great  distance  from  the  Kentucky 
side  of  the  river,  especially  at  night  when  lighted  up. 
Many  fugitives  reached  it,  and  not  one  was  ever  turned 
away.  They  were  always  conducted  to  friends  by  one  or 
more  of  Mr.  Rankin's  seven  sons.  These  young  men  all 
volunteered  in  the  Union  army  and  served  through  the 
war,  thus  demonstrating  the  soundness  of  their  anti-slav 
ery  education.  Mr.  Rankin  was  a  man  of  judgment,  per 
severance,  piety,  and  strong  character.  His  influence  in 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  171 

Ohio  and  Kentucky  was  powerful.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
knew  him  intimately,  and  both  he  and  Mrs.  Stowe  visited 
him  several  times  at  his  home  and  learned  to  respect  him. 
Mr.  Eankin  would  have  disclaimed  Mr.  Beecher's  compli 
ment,  for  he  was  free  from  vanity  and  his  modesty  was 
equal  to  his  great  merit. 

Our  space  will  not  permit  us  to  sketch  others  of  the 
noteworthy  men  present,  though  some  of  them — for  in 
stance,  Elizur  Wright,  H.  B.  Stanton,  and  James  A. 
Thome — afterward  became  men  of  national  reputation. 
The  impression  made  upon  Mr.  Birney  by  the  men  pres- 
e,nt_was  favorable.  They  were  probably  all  members  of 
the  Church.  They  were  temperate.  The  extremely  small 
number  of  tobacco-chewers  among  them  attracted  his 
notice.  The  discussions  were  able,  moderate  in  language, 
and  to  the  point.  At  that  stage  of  the  cause  speakers 
aiming  at  personal  notoriety  only  had  not  sought  in  any 
large  number  the  anti-slavery  platform  in  Ohio.  Sincerity 
and  earnestness  were  in  the  atmosphere.  The  visitor  from 
geniucky  was^  of  course^  the  central  obj  ect  of  attention. 
He  was  invited  to  a  seat  as  member,  and  to  address  the 
convention,  and  lie  was  made  chairman  of  the  principal 
committee — the  one  charged  with  the  duty  of  preparing 
and  bringing  forward  business.  To  Mr.  Birney  the  most 
significant  part  of  the  action  of  the  convention  was  an 
amendment  to  his  reported  resolution  against  the  "  Black 
Laws."  To  a  denunciation  of  them  as  "  cruel,  impious, 
and  disgraceful  to  a  Christian  State  "  was  added  a  pledge 
to  vote  for  such  candidates  only  for  legislative  office  as 
were  pledged  to  repeal  them.  The  latter  clause  was 
stricken  out — a  change  which  appeared  in  the  minutes  as 
an  adoption  of  the  report  "  after  being  slightly  amended." 
The  "  Declaration  of  Sentiment "  was  subjected  to  a  simi 
lar  emasculation  ;  under  the  head  of  "  Plan  of  Operations  " 
the  committee,  among  other  things,  had  reported :  "  We 


172  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

shall  absolve  ourselves  from  the  political  responsibility  of 
national  slave-holding  by  petitioning  Congress,"  etc.,  and 
had  added  a  clause,  equivalent  to  a  pledge,  to  vote  for  such 
candidates  as  would  grant  the  petitions.  The  clause  was 
stricken  out,  leaving  in  the  "declaration"  the  absurd 
proposition  that  a  citizen  could  avoid  responsibility  for 
bad  laws  by  petitioning  for  their  repeal!  As  Mr.  Birney 
expressed  it,  they  had  loaded  with  powder,  but  forgotten 
to  ram  down  a  bullet  1  He  could  not  easily  comprehend 
how  men  could  have  political  principles  and  not  vote  on 
them.  It  was  represented,  on  the  other  hand,  that  a 
pledge  to  vote  would  alienate  a  certain  sect  which  regarded 
voting  as  a  sin.  The  strongest  reason  probably  was  that 
the  clergymen  and  religious  men  generally  belonged  to 
the  class,  then  rapidly  increasing  in  the  country,  of  men 
who  do  not  go  to  the  polls.  In  his  letter  to  Lewis  Tap- 
pan  of  February  3d,  he  had  claimed  that  the  political 
action  of  political  men  and  the  holy  action  of  religious 
men  should  be  reconciled,  and  that  the  "  elevated  princi 
ples  of  holiness  "  should  be  brought  to  bear  so  as  to  effect 
legal  abolition.  He  left  the  Ohio  Convention  content 
with  the  character  of  his  coadjutors,  but  satisfied  that  a 
vast  amount  of  work  would  be  necessary  to  make  them 
effective  for  the  practical  work  of  abolition  by  law. 

The  fifteen  days  following  the  adjournment  of .  the 
convention  were  devoted  to  filling  the  engagements  which 
had  been  made  for  him  to  speak  at  Columbus,  Pittsburg, 
Harrisburg,  and  Philadelphia.  At  every  one  of  these 
places  he  was  welcomed  by  crowded  and  enthusiastic  audi 
ences,  and  the  notices  in  the  press  were  all  favorable  to 
him  personally,  and  most  of  them  to  his  cause.  ^^Phila 
delphia  he  spoke  three  times.  In  none  of  the  four  cities 
were  there  indications  of  mob  violence.  His  reception  by 
the  people  was  in  the  nature  of  an  ovation,  and" lie  reached 
New  York  greatly  encouraged. 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  173 

The  "  anniversary  week  "  of  May,  1835,  at  New  York, 
of  th~e  national  benevolent  and  religious  societies  elicited 
unusual  interest.  Much  of  this  was  due  to  the  peculiar 
circumstances  in  which  the  second  anniversary  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  to  be  held.  The  pre 
ceding  year  had  been  marked  in  New  York  city  by  mobs, 
which  had  destroyed  the  property  and  sought  the  lives  of 
the  Tappans,  and  it  was  probable  that  the  assembly  of 
anti-slavery  men  would  be  dispersed  by  a  rabble,  excited 
by  inflammatory  appeals  of  political  newspapers,  encour 
aged  by  the  immunity  promised  by  politicians,  and  led  by 
custom-house  officials,  merchants'  clerks,  kidnappers,  and 
slave-holders.  It  had  been  marked  also  by  manifestations 
in  every  part  of  the  North  and  in  one  part  of  the  South 
of  the  national  sentiment  against  slavery.  The  toleration 
in  Kentucky  of  free  discussion,  the  formation  there  of  a 
State  anti-slavery  society,  the  prospect  of  the  early  estab 
lishment  at  Danville  of  an  uncompromising  immediate- 
abolition  newspaper,  had  turned  all  eyes  to  that  State  and 
to  the  movements  of  James  G.  Birney.  'His  speeches  on 
h^way  eastward  had  been  favorably  reported  by  the  press. 
His^appearance  on  the  New  York  platform  was  therefore 
eagerly  awaited  by  friends,  enemies,  and  the  public  gen 
erally.  _  On  the  9th  of  May,  Mr.  Garrison  wrote  from  New 
York  to  the  "  Liberator  " :  "  Of  course,  Mr.  Birney  will 
be  the  observed  of  all  observers." 

When  the  anniversary  meeting  was  called  to  order  on 
the  12th,  the  large  church  was  crowded  even  in  the  aisles 
and  galleries.  Elizur  Wright,  the  secretary,  read  parts  of 
the  "Annual  Report."  One  of  the  first  passages  was  in 
the  following  words,  and  was  received  with  applause : 

Soon  after  the  last  anniversary  the  anti-slavery  cause  received 
efficient  aid  from  the  accession  of  Mr.  Birney,  of  Kentucky.  The 
The  fact  of  his  being  a  Southern  man,  a  distinguished  agent  of 
the  Colonization  Society,  and  of  his  proving  his  sincerity  by 


174  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

emancipating  his  own  slaves,  gave  great  weight  to  his  letters, 
which  of  themselves  were  unanswerable  arguments  for  the  futility 
of  colonization  and  the  truth  and  efficiency  of  the  doctrine  of 
immediate  emancipation.  If  he  has  not  brought  all  good  men 
openly  to  renounce  colonization,  he  has  at  least  placed  the  scheme 
in  such  a  light  that  comparatively  few  such  choose  to  defend  it, 
and  fewer  still  to  give  it  practical  support. 

The  president,  Mr.  Arthur  Tappan,  then  introduced 
Mr.  Birney  to  the  audience. 

A  moment's  silence  as  the  speaker  stepped  forward  on 
the  platform,  and  then  he  was  greeted  with  thunders  of 
applause.  A  dignified,  imposing  presence,  a  noble  coun 
tenance,  self-possession,  a  handsome,  strongly  built,  and 
graceful  figure  above  middle  height,*  and  the  florid  com 
plexion  of  healthy  middle  age  were  the  first  impression. 
The  second  was  of  finely  cut  and  regular  features,  soft, 
prematurely  gray  brown  hair,  blue  eyes,  broad  and  high 
forehead,  and  a  mouth  expressive  of  both  gentleness  and 
firmness.  His  manner  conciliated  opponents  and  awak 
ened  curiosity  and  interest  to  hear  him.  The  first  round 
of  applause  was  followed  by  approving  murmurs,  and  the 
managers  felt  that  the  meeting  was  in  no  danger  of  inter 
ruption  by  mob  violence.  Mr.  Birney  read  the  first  reso 
lution  : 

That,  for  the  permanent  safety  of  the  Union,  it  is  indispensable 
that  the  whole  moral  power  of  the  free  States  should  be  concen 
trated  and  brought  into  action  for  the  extermination  of  slavery 
among  us. 

No  verbatim  report  of  this  speech  was  made ;  the  only 
report  was  the  imperfect  one  furnished  to  the  "  New  York 
Observer  "and  the  "  New  York  Evangelist."  This  is  to 
be  regretted,  for  the  speech  struck  the  key-note  of  his 
future  anti-slavery  career.  It  was  a  well-considered  argu- 

*  He  was  five  feet  nine  inches  in  height. 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  175 

merit  and  a  patriotic  appeal  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Union — a  demonstration  that  free  discussion  would  not 
rend  it,  but  that  ki  shivery,  if  it  continues  many  years 
longer,  must  itself  dissolve  the  Union,  and  that  inevita 
bly"  He  pointed  to  the  tendency  of  slavery  to  create 
large  landed  estates ;  to  drive  the  poorer  whites,  mechan 
ics,  and  laborers  to  the  Nortii ;  to  build  up  a  class  of  non 
resident  proprietors  and  another  of  overseers  managing 
thlTcotton  and  sugar  plantations ;  to  increase  the  demands 
of  the  South  for  protection  by  the  United  States  through 
standing  armies  against  slave  insurrections ;  and  to  cause 
demands  by  the  South  for  legal  restrictions  on  the  right 
of  petition,  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  lead 
ing  to  the  destruction  of  all  the  safeguards  of  personal 
liberty  in  the  free  States.  These  demands  can  not  and 
will  not  be  conceded ;  hence  strife  and  disunion.  "  If 
you  wish  to  preserve  the  union  of  these  States,"  said  the 
orator,  "  slavery  must  go  down ! "  He  was  faithful  in 
portraying  the  gathering  of  the  storm-clouds  which,  if 
not  averted,  "  will  burst  over  the  land  with  tremendous 
and  desolating  violence."  The  reniedy  he  proposed  was 
that  "  the  moral  power  of  the  free  States  should  be  con 
centrated  and  brought  into  action  "  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  It  was  not  enough  to  "  concentrate  "  it ;  the 
Further  step  must  be  taken  of  bringing  it  into  effective 
"notion."  The  political  power  of  the  free  States  should 
be  exerted  to  put  an  end  to  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  and  the  Territories  and  to  the  interstate  slave- 
trade,  legislation  being  the  only  method  known  in  this 
republic  of  bringing  moral  poicer  into  action.  In  his 
view  a  principle  held  was  a  principle  to  be  acted  upon ; 
an  abolitionist  who  refused  to  vote  on  principle  was  not 
worthy  of  respect.  From  the  first  of  his  anti-slavery  ca 
reer  to  the  last  he  regarded  the  non-voting  abolitionists 
as  tinkling  cymbals.  His  nature  was  too  sincere,  practical, 


176  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

and  logical  to  bear  patiently  such  inconsistency  between 
professions  and  practice.  That  he  did  not  go  into  detail 
on  this  point  was  wise ;  a  good  deal  of  work  was  still  to 
be  done  before  many  abolitionists  could  be  converted  to 
the  doctrine  of  "  political  action "  as  laid  down  in  the 
constitution  of  the  National  Society.  In  this  speechjttr. 
Birney  declared  his  fidelity  to  the  national  Constitution  : 
"  I  trust  in  God  that  it  may  ever  live  ! "  At  its  close  he  was 
applauded,  and  the  resolution  was  adopted  "  unanimously^ 
^  His  stay  in  New  YOJJL  was  prolonged  about  ten  days.' 
During  this  time  he  was  the  guest  .o£  the  Tappans  and  of 
Judge  William  Jay,  spending  several  evenings  at  the 
country  residence  of  the  latter.  In  the  judge  he  found  a 
congenial  spirit,  and  for  him  he  formed  a  friendship  that 
was  never  clouded.  Mr.  Jay  was  a  son  of  John  Jay,  for 
mer  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  and  one  of  the 
most  active  promoters  of  abolition  in  New  York.  The 
son  had  been  an  immediate  abolitionist  from  his  youth 
up.  At  the  request  of  the  Tappans,  Judge  Jay  had  pre 
pared  and  they  had  published  his  "  Inquiry,"  a  compara 
tive  view  of  the  Anti-Slavery  and  Colonization  Societies — an 
admirable  work  which  held  its  place  for  many  years.  In 
the  conversations  between  Mr.  Birney  and  Judge  Jay,  the 
general  plan  was  suggested  of  a  book  on  the  action  "of  the 
National  Government  in  behalf  of  slavery.  The  necessary 
investigations  of  the  facts  were  subsequently  made  by  the 
judge,  and  the  book  was  finished  and  published  in  1838, 
under  the  name  of  "  Jay's  View,"  etc.  As  a  contribution 
to  the  political  literature  of  the  anti-slavery  cause,  it  took 
the  leading  place.  An  edition  of  five  thousand  was  ex 
hausted  in  1838,  and  a  second  was  published  in  1839.  The 
book  was  a  vade  mecum  of  the  lecturers  appointed  by  the 
National  Society,  and  contributed  greatly  to  turn  the  cur 
rent*  of  anti-slavery  thought  to  political  action.  It  ar 
rested  the  attention  of  many  public  men,  and  did  much 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  177 

to  give  dignity  and  weight  to  the  abolition  movement  as 
one  touching  practical  statesmanship.  Jay's  writings  on 
slavery  continued  until  1853  (he  died  in  1858,  at  the  age 
of  sixty-nine),  and  were  always  forcible  as  well  as  timely. 
They  fill  a  closely  printed  octavo  volume  of  six  hundred 
and  seventy  pages,  and  will  give  him  name  and  fame  long 
after  most  of  his  anti-slavery  coadjutors  shall  have  been 
forgotten.  He  was  founder  of  the  Bible  Society  in  1815, 
and  became  a  member,  about  that  time,  of  the  New  York 
Manumission  Society.  As  first  judge  of  AVestchester 
County  (which  office  he  held  from  1820  to  1842,  when  he 
was  superseded  because  of  his  anti-slavery  writings),  he 
charged  the  Grand  Jury  in  1835  that  it  would  be  the  duty 
of  every  citizen  to  resist  the  enforcement  of  any  statute 
that  might  be  passed  to  restrict  the  free  discussion  of  slav 
ery.  His  manly  stand,  it  is  thought,  prevented  the  pas 
sage  of  such  a  statute  by  the  New  York  Legislature.  He 
was  a  wise,  conservative,  and  statesmanlike  abolitionist. 
As  a  member  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Ameri 
can  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  author  of  its  constitution, 
his  services  were  most  valuable.  lie  and  Mr.  Birney  were 
not  only  personal  friends,  but  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder 
in  all  the  exigencies  of  the  anti-slavery  movement.  They 
had  many  qualities  in  common ;  Mr.  Jay  was  at  his  best  as 
counselor  and  essayist  ;  Mr.  Birney  excelled  also  as  a 
speaker  and  in  the  practical  and  executive  management  of 
the  reform.  It  is  safe  to  say,  that  after  May,  1835,  no 
important  step  was  taken  or  important  document  issued 
by  the  Executive  Committee,  without  the  previous  sanc 
tion  of  both  of  them.  In  the  month  last  named,  Mr.  Bir 
ney  was  elected  a  vice-president,  and  Mr.  Jay,  foreign 
corresponding  secretary  for  the  society. 

During  the  anniversary  week,  invitations  to  lecture  in 
different  parts  of  the  North  were  showered  upojn  Mr. 
Birney.  He  accepted  enough  to  occupy  his  time  for  sev- 


178  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

era!  weeks,  and  visited  Connecticut,  Khode  Island,  Massa 
chusetts,  and  New  Hampshire.  His  reception  everywhere 
was  gratifying.  His  audiences  were  large  and  undis 
turbed,  there  being  no  little  curiosity  among  the  people 
to  see  him  and  hear  his  opinions.  At  Boston,  Dr.  Chan- 
ning  was  one  of  his  hearers.  The  impression  he  made  was 
reflected  in  the  press.  One  newspaper  called  him — 

One  of  the  most  candid,  temperate,  and  urbane  speakers  that 
ever  addressed  a  popular  assembly. 

Another  said  of  him  : 

Mr.  Birney's  manner  of  speaking  is  pleasant,  his  statements 
candid,  his  language  persuasive.  His  mind  is  of  a  high  or 
der.  .  .  .  Such  a  man.  .  .  in  the  cause  he  is  engaged  in  will  be 
the  means  of  executing  much  good. 

As  a  lecturer,  Mr.  Birney  was  not  habitually  emo 
tional.  By  nature,  he  was  intellectual  and  judicial ;  and, 
being  free  from  affectation,  he  exhibited  these  qualities  in 
his  ordinary  speeches.  He  was  creative,  but  not  imitative. 
To  seekers  after  truth  he  was  a  safe  guide,  leading  them 
on  a  path  luminous  with  fact.  He  gained  the  implicit 
confidence  of  his  hearers ;  and  without  any  demonstra 
tions  of  oratorical  art  he  carried  them,  by  faultless  logic, 
with  him  to  his  conclusions.  No  one  ever  called  him  a 
"  silver-tongued  orator,"  but  he  made  as  many  converts  as 
any  of  his  brother  agitators.  Lewis  Tappan  is  reported 
to  have  said  that  no  other  reform  movement  or  church 
could  produce  five  platform  orators  equal  in  effectiveness 
to  Birney,  Weld,  Stanton,  Gerrit  Smith,  and  Alvan  Stew 
art,  each  differing  from  the  others  in  method.  As  a 
speaker,  Mr.  Birney  suggested  great  power  in  reserve. 
This  he  had.  The  passionate  depths,  the  intense  earnest 
ness  of  his  natures-were  only  revealed  in  the  heat  of  debate 
or  the  pressure  of  some  great  exigency.  The  great 
speeches  of  his  life  were  in  defending  a  client  indicted  for 
murder ;  in  debating  the  slavery  question  against  President 


A  WIDER  SPHERE  OF  ACTION.  179 

John  C.  Young,  before  a  Kentucky  audience ;  in  vindi 
cating  the  anti-slavery  character  of  the  Constitution  of 
Ohio,  in  the  Matilda  slave  case,  before  the  Common  Pleas 
Criminal  Court  at  Cincinnati;  and  in  pleading  for  the 
right  of  free  discussion  before  the  mob  assembled  in  mass 
meeting  at  the  Cincinnati  court-house,  in  1836,  with  the 
intention  to  destroy  his  press  and  take  his  life.  On  those 
occasions  his  reticence  and  reserve  were  swept  away ; 
every  mental  faculty  was  alert ;  every  nerve  tense  with 
life ;  and  the  audience  was  moved  to  tears  and  laughter 
and  shame  at  the  will  of  the  speaker.  No  man  who  heard 
him  on  any  of  those  occasions  ever  thought  of  him  again 
except  as  a  consummate  orator.  But  he  did  not  fire_up 

YeSUVlUS  to  COOJf  ft  fHtmpr 

An  episode  in  his  Eastern  tour  was  his  offering  a  reso 
lution  at  the  New  England  Anti- Slavery  Convention,  at 
Boston,  against  the  use  of  "  personalities  "  by  abolitionists. 
In  that  locality,  and  under  all  the  circumstances,  this  was 
a  noteworthy  thing  to  do.  It  implied  a  censure  of  the 
violent  language  commonly  used  by  the  "  Liberator,"  and 
was  so  understood  generally,  though  H.  C.  AY  right  affected 
not  to  perceive  its  application.  The  convention  passed 
the  resolution. 

But  while  he  was  lecturing  to  the  New  Englanders,  a 
storm  was  brewing  against  him  in  Kentucky.  Letters 
from  Danville  summoned  him  to  return  home  to  meet  the 
machinations  of  emissaries  who  had  come  from  other  places 
and  were  busy  in  organizing  a  movement  to  prevent  the 
publication  of  his  paper,  the  "  Philanthropist,"  which 
was  announced  for  the  1st  of  August.  With  reluctance, 
he  canceled  appointments  to  speak  in  Albany,  Utica,  and 
other  cities  in  Central  New  York,  and  relinquished  the 
long-expected  pleasure  of  visiting  his  friend  Gerrit  Smith 
at  Peterboro.  When  he  reached  home,  about  the  10th  of 
July,  he  found  the  county  in  commotion. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

HE  IS  OSTRACIZED  IN  KENTUCKY  AND    GOES 
TO    OHIO. 

1835. 

DURING  his  absence  from  home,  which  had  been  pro 
longed  nearly  three  months,  nothing  had  been  left  un 
done  to  turn  public  sentiment  against  him  in  Mercer 
County.  Several  local  meetings  in  different  parts  of  the 
county  were  followed  by  a  mass  meeting  at  Danville. 
These  were  addressed  in  inflammatory  speeches  by  orators 
from  other  parts  of  the  State.  Resolutions  were  passed 
pledging  the  citizens  present  to  prevent  the  publication 
of  the  "Philanthropist,"  "peaceably  if  we  can,  forcibly  if 
we  must"  Threats  of  personal  violence  were  made  against 
any  and  all  men  who  should  countenance  the  paper  or  aid 
in  its  circulation.  Rumors  of  intended  slave  insurrections 
were  spread,  and  many  women  and  some  timid  men  were 
excited  or  frightened  by  them.  The  mass  meeting  at 
Danville  was  composed  in  large  part  of  persons  from  other 
counties  than  Mercer.  It  appointed  an  executive  com 
mittee  of  thirty-three  persons  to  address  to  Mr.  Birney  a 
letter  of  remonstrance  and  "take  such  other  steps  as 
might  be  necessary." 

From  their  letter,  prepared  by  a  Whig  member  of 
Congress  from  another  district,  we  quote  the  most  im 
portant  passages : 


OSTRACIZED  IX  KENTUCKY  AND  GOES  TO  OHIO.  181 

We  address  you  now  in  the  calmness  and  candor  that  should 
characterize  law-abiding  men,  as  willing  to  avoid  violence  as  they 
are  determined  to  meet  extremity,  and  advise  you  of  the  peril 
that  must  and  inevitably  will  attend  the  execution  of  your  pur 
pose.  We  propose  to  you  to  postpone  the  setting  up  of  your  press 
and  the  publication  of  your  paper  until  application  can  be  had  to 
the  Legislature,  who  will  by  a  positive  law  set  rules  for  your  ob 
servance,  or,  by  a  refusal  to  act,  admonish  us  of  our  duty.  We 
admonish  you,  sir,  as  citizens  of  the  same  neighborhood,  as  mem 
bers  of  the  same  society  in  which  you  live  and  move,  and  for 
whose  harmony  and  quiet  we  feel  the  most  sincere  solicitude,  to 
"beware  how  you  make  an  experiment  here  which  no  American 
slave-holding  community  has  found  itself  able  to  bear. 

To  this  communication,  dated  July  12th  and  deliv 
ered  in  the  evening  of  that  day,  Mr.  Birney  promptly 
answered,  suggesting  that  it  would  have  been  more  in  the 
character  of  "  law-abiding  citizens,  which  they  professed 
to  be,  had  the  signers  abstained  entirely  from  the  threat 
that  a  resort  might  be  had  to  violence  to  prevent  the 
exercise  of  one  of  the  most  precious  rights  of  an  Ameri 
can — a  right  which  can  never  for  a  moment  be  surren 
dered." 

He  concluded  his  answer  with  :  "  However  desirous  I 
may  be  of  obliging  you  as  citizens  and  neighbors,  I  can 
not  accede  to  your  proposition." 

The  gauntlet  flung  down  by  the  committee  of  thirty- 
three  had  been  lifted,  and  the  next  move,  according  to 
their  programme,  was  to  mob  Mr.  Birney  when  he  should 
ride  into  town  next  morning  as  it  was  his  habit  to  do. 
They  were  busily  engaged  in  marshaling  on  the  main 
street  "  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort,"  when  a  young 
Kentuckian  mounted  a  store-box,  and,  reminding  the 
crowd  that  he  had  opposed  Mr.  Birney's  views,  declared 
that  he  honored  him  for  his  sincerity  and  goodness,  and 
no  harm  should  be  done  him  by  one  or  many  assailants 
unless  they  were  numerous  enough  to  march  over  the 


182  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

dead  bodies  of  the  speaker  and  many  others.  The  brave 
orator  now  enjoys  an  honored  old  age.  He  is  widely 
known  as  ex-chaplain  of  the  United  States  Senate  and 
Moderator  of  the  last  General  Assembly  of  the  Presby 
terian  Church,  South,  the  Rev.  Joseph  J.  Bullock,  of 
Washington  city.  Friends  of  law  and  order  rallied  on 
his  appeal,  and  when  Mr.  Birney,  half  an  hour  later,  rode 
through  the  street  and  dismounted  at  the  post-office,  he 
was  not  molested. 

The  next  day  he  wrote  to  Gerrit  Smith : 

Circumstances  have  occurred  since  my  return  that  lead  me  to 
fear  that  my  projected  newspaper  will  be  forcibly  suppressed  and 
that  all  open  discussion  of  the  subject  of  slavery  will  be  inhib 
ited  in  Kentucky.  ...  I  am  making  preparation  for  the  publi 
cation  of  the  ' k  Philanthropist, "  a  notice  of  which  you  have 
doubtless  seen.  If  I  am  permitted  to  go  on  with  it  I  will  send 
it  to  you.  It  will  probably  be  out  by  the  15th  of  August. 

Neither  his  fear  nor  his  expectation  was  verified. 
Money  effected  more  than  threats.  The  committee  quietly 
bought  out  the  printer.  Mr.  Birney's  arrangements  for 
printing  his  paper  had  been  made  with  one  Dismukes,  the 
owner  of  the  "  Olive  Branch,"  the  Danville  weekly  news 
paper,  and  he  had  given  him  a  bond  of  indemnity  against 
all  damages  from  mobs.  Mr.  Birney  had  seen  Dismukes 
on  the  14th  of  July  and  found  him  apparently  resolute. 

Next  morning,  about  eleven,  he  rode  into  town.  A 
group  of  people  were  gathered  about  the  printing-office, 
waiting  and  curious.  Dismukes,  with  his  family,  had  dis 
appeared  about  midnight.  His  office  with  all  its  materi 
als  was  in  the  hands  of  another  person,  who  showed  a  bill 
of  sale  in  due  form,  and  his  dwelling  with  its  furniture 
was  held  by  the  same  party  under  a  deed  properly  signed, 
attested,  and  acknowledged.  Dismukes  was  said  to  have 
been  bought  out  at  a  high  price  and  to  have  gone  to  Mis 
souri.  The  slave-holding  party  enjoyed  its  triumph  with- 


OSTRACIZED  IX  KENTUCKY  AND  GOES  TO  OHIO.   183 

out  open  exultation,  publishing  widely,  however,  the 
threat  that  any  man  who  should  attempt  to  print  the 
"  Philanthropist "  at  Danville  would  do  so  at  the  risk  of 
his  life. 

For  nearly  two  months  he  endeavored,  through  cor 
respondence  and  personal  visits  to  Lexington,  Frankfort, 
and  Louisville,  to  procure  a  practical  printer  to  issue  the 
proposed  newspaper. 

He  did  not  extend  his  negotiations  outside  of  Ken 
tucky.  A  citizen  of  the  State  might  join  him  without 
peril  of  life ;  no  man  from  a  free  State  could.  Before  the 
middle  of  September  he  relinquished  the  effort  as  useless. 
It  had  become  manifest  that  an  anti-slavery  paper  could 
not  be  published  at  Danville. 

In  July,  1835,  Prentice,  editor  of  the  Louisville  "  Jour 
nal,"  published  the  following  squib : 

Mr.  James  G.  Birney  has  issued  proposals  for  publishing  a 
paper  at  Danville,  in  this  State,  to  be  called  "  The  Investigator." 
His  object  is  to  effect  the  emancipation  of  the  slave  population. 
He  is  an  enthusiastic,  but,  in  our  opinion,  a  visionary  philan 
thropist,  whose  efforts,  though  well  intended,  are  likely  to  be  of 
no  real  service  to  the  cause  of  humanity.  He  at  least  shows, 
however,  that  he  has  the  courage  to  reside  among  the  people 
whose  institutions  he  assails.  He  is  not  like  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  living  in  Massachusetts  and  opening  the  battery  upon 
the  States  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  miles  off.  He  is  not  such 
a  coward  or  fool  as  to  think  of  cannonading  the  South  and  West 
from  the  steeple  of  a  New  England  meeting-house. 

During  the  excitement  in  July,  wishing  to  speak  to 
the  people,  he  tried  to  rent  for  that  purpose  the  old  Pres 
byterian  church,  which  was  commonly  used  as  a  lecture 
hall  and  in  which  he  had  delivered  many  anti-slavery  ad 
dresses,  but  it  was  refused  him.  Similar  applications  for 
halls  and  churches  in  other  towns  were  also  rejected. 
From  the  time  of  his  return  from  the  East  he  was  unable 


184:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

to  procure  any  public  building  in  which  to  defend  him 
self  before  the  the  people.  Free  speech  was  brought 
within  very  narrow  limits  in  Kentucky. 

In  the  last  half  of  July  the  irregularity  in  the  delivery 
of  his  mails  led  him  to  suspect  that  his  letters  were  tam 
pered  with  and  his  papers  destroyed.  The  explanations 
of  the  postmaster  were  not  satisfactory.  Early  in  August 
Mr.  Birney  wrote  Gerrit  Smith :  "  I  have  just  been  in 
formed  that  our  Danville  postmaster  has  determined  to 
become  my  intellectual  caterer  !  He  is  beginning  to  with 
hold  my  papers." 

A  sharp  remonstrance  elicited  the  answer  that  the 
postmaster  would  cheerfully  obey  any  order  that  might 
be  given  on  the  subject  by  Postmaster-General  Kendall, 
to  whom  Mr.  Birney  was  referred  for  redress.  Repeated 
letters  to  Mr.  Kendall  remained  unanswered.  On  the  22d 
of  August,  however,  Amos  Kendall  wrote  as  follows  to 
the  New  York  city  postmaster,  who  had  excluded  anti- 
slavery  papers  from  the  mails,  and  reported  the  fact  with 
a  request  for  instructions  as  to  his  duty  : 

I  am  deterred  from  giving  an  order  to  exclude  the  whole 
series  of  abolition  publications  from  the  Southern  mails  only  by 
the  want  of  legal  power,  and  if  I  was  situated  as  you  are  I  would 
do  as  you  have  done. 

This  letter  signed  by  the  Postmaster-General  was  ex 
hibited  to  Mr.  Birney  by  the  village  postmaster  as  his 
authority  for  a  course  which  personally  he  disapproved. 
The  signal  for  a  general  refusal  by  Southern  postmasters 
to  deliver  anti-slavery  papers  was  given  July  29,  1835,  by 
the  leading  citizens  of  Charleston,  S.  C.,  who  broke  into 
the  post-office  of  that  city,  seized  all  Northern  papers  sus 
pected  of  anti-slavery  leanings,  and  burned  them  on  the 
public  square.  For  some  two  months  before  his  removal 
from  Kentucky  Mr.  Birney  did  not  receive  any  anti-slav- 


OSTRACIZED  IX  KENTUCKY  AND  GOES  TO  OHIO.   185 

ery  papers  through,  the  mails.  Letters  addressed  to  him 
were  delivered. 

He  was  sorely  tried,  too,  by  the  estrangement  of  many 
of  his  friends  and  relatives  and  by  the  genuine  grief  of 
many  who  adhered  to  him  socially.  He  felt  that  he  was 
regarded  by  many  as  an  enemy  to  the  peace  of  the  com 
munity  and  that  he  was  the  occasion  of  discord  among 
kindred.  The  younger  members  of  his  family  were  ex 
posed  to  rude  speeches  and  unpleasant  incidents.  His 
usefulness  and  happiness  in  Kentucky  were  at  an  end. 

On  the  13th  of  September  he  wrote  to  Gerrit  Smith  a 
letter,  from  which  we  make  a  few  extracts : 

I  have  determined  to  remove  to  Cincinnati.  I  am  now  mak 
ing  preparations  for  doing  so,  and  expect  to  have  my  family  there 
by  the  10th  of  next  month. 

In  this  letter  he  speaks  of  "  the  exorbitant  claims  of 
the  South  on  the  liberties  of  the  free  States,  demanding 
that  everything  that  has  been  heretofore  deemed  precious 
to  them  shall  be  surrendered,  in  order  that  the  slave-holder 
may  be  perfectly  at  his  ease  in  his  iniquity." 

And  he  adds  a  passage  which  was  widely  published  at 
the  time,  and  was  the  forerunner  of  Seward's  "irrepressi 
ble  conflict "  and  Lincoln's  4'  This  country  can  not  exist 
half  free  and  half  slave."  It  is  as  follows  : 

The  contest  is  becoming — has  become — one  not  alone  of  free 
dom  for  the  blacks,  but  of  freedom  for  the  whites.  It  has  now 
become  absolutely  necessary  that  slavery  shall  cease,  in  order 
that  freedom  may  be  preserved  to  any  portion  of  our  land.  The 
antagonist  principles  of  liberty  and  slavery  have  been  roused  into 
action,  and  one  or  the  other  must  be  victorious.  There  will  be 
no  cessation  of  the  strife  until  slavery  shall  l)e  exterminated  or  lib- 


Several  false  reports  have  gained  a  certain  credence  in 
regard  to  the  manner  in  which  Mr.  Birney  left  Kentucky. 


186  JAMES   G.  BIRXEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

One  has  it  that  he  escaped  at  night,  taking  his  family 
with  him ;  another,  that  he  fled  for  his  life,  leaving  his 
family  behind  him ;  and  the  third,  that  he  narrowly 
avoided  falling  into  the  hands  of  a  mob.  In  fact,  the 
removal  involved  no  dramatic  situations  whatever.  For 
about  a  month  his  preparations  for  changing  his  residence 
to  Cincinnati  were  made  without  secrecy.  He  bought  a 
dwelling-house  in  that  city,  sold  his  farm  near  Danville, 
wound  up  his  affairs  there,  made  and  received  parting  calls 
from  relatives,  connections,  and  friends,  a  few  of  whom 
sought  by  courtesies  to  make  amends  for  past  estrange 
ment,  and,  when  everything  was  in  readiness,  accompanied 
on  horseback  the  carriage  that  contained  his  family,  pass 
ing  through  the  main  street  of  the  town,  and  halting  there 
to  say  "  Good-by "  to  some  friends  who  were  awaiting 
him.  It  is  true  he  was  going  into  exile  from  his  native 
State,  but  there  were  few  respectable  men  in  Danville 
who  would  not  even  then  have  stood  between  him  and 
personal  danger. 

The  feeling  cherished  toward  James  G.  Birney  by  the 
best  of  his  Kentucky  townsmen  is  expressed  by  one  of 
them,  Hon.  Thomas  Green,  of  Maysville,  in  his  "Sketch 
of  the  McDowells  and  their  Connections :  an  Historical 
Family"  (1879).  He  describes  him  as  "a  man  of  whom 
his  relatives,  State,  and  country  have  good  reason  to  be 
proud." 

The  following  passage  is  an  extract  from  a  speech 
made  by  Robert  J.  Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky,  in  his 
famous  discussion,  in  June,  1836,  in  Glasgow,  Scotland, 
with  George  Thompson,  the  English  abolitionist : 

Nor  can  he  who  traduces  my  brethren,  my  kindred,  my  home 
— all  that  I  most  venerate  and  re\7ere — honor  me  so  much  as  by 
traducing  me  They  had  been  told  that  Mr.  J.  G.  Birney  had 
fled  from  Kentucky,  and  left  his  wife  and  children  behind  him 
in  great  danger,  he  being  obliged  to  flee  for  his  life  !  It  was 


OSTRACIZED  IN  KENTUCKY  AND  GOES  TO  OHIO.   187 

true,  he  believed,  that  Mr.  Birney,  excellent  and  beloved  as  he 
was,  had  found  it  best  to  emigrate  from  that  State.  But  that  he 
had  fad  rested,  he  believed,  on  Mr.  Thompson's  naked  assertion. 
That  he  had  left  his  wife  and  children  behind,  believing  them  to 
be  in  personal  danger,  was  a  thing  which  it  would  require  amaz 
ingly  dear  proof  to  establish  against  the  gentleman  in  question  (page 
107  of  printed  report). 

Mr.  Breckenridge  had  known  Mr.  Birney  from  boy 
hood. 


CHAPTER  XX. 
THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

1835-1836. 

THE  bonfires  of  Korthern  newspapers,  in  the  evening 
of  July  29, 1835,  on  the  public  square  of  Charleston,  S.  C., 
were  lighted  by  an  orderly  assemblage  of  gentlemen  of 
both  political  parties,  the  postmaster  being  present  and 
aiding.  In  the  morning  of  that  day  he  had  written  to 
Postmaster- General  Kendall  for  his  instructions ;  but  he 
probably  knew  in  advance  what  they  would  be,  and  that 
he  risked  nothing  by  prompt  action.  Mr.  Kendall  an 
swered,  August  4th : 

.  .  .  Upon  a  careful  examination  of  the  law,  I  am  satisfied 
that  the  Postmaster-General  has  no  legal  authority  to  exclude 
newspapers  from  the  mail  nor  prohibit  their  carriage  or  delivery 
on  account  of  their  character  or  tendency,  real  or  supposed.  .  .  . 
But  I  am  not  prepared  to  direct  you  t6  forward  or  deliver  the 
papers  of  which  you  speak.  The  Post-Office  Department  was 
created  to  serve  the  people  of  each  and  all  of  the  United  States, 
and  not  to  be  used  as  the  instrument  of  their  destruction.  None 
of  the  papers  detained  have  been  forwarded  to  me  ;  .  .  .  but 
you  inform  me  they  are  in  character  "the  most  inflammatory  and 
incendiary  and  insurrectionary  in  the  highest  degree." 

By  no  act  or  direction  of  mine,  official  or  private,  could  I  be 
induced  to  aid  knowingly  in  giving  circulation  to  papers  of  this 
description,  directly  or  indirectly.  We  owe  an  obligation  to  the 
laws,  but  a  higher  one  to  the  communities  in  which  we  live  ; 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  189 

and  if  the  former  be  perverted  to  destroy  the  latter,  it  is  patriot 
ism  to  disregard   them.     Entertaining  these  views,  I  can  not 
sanction  and  will  not  condemn  the  step  you  have  taken.  .  .  . 
I  am,  etc.,  AMOS  KENDALL. 

This  letter  was  generally  published  in  the  newspaper 
organs  of  the  Administration.  On  the  20th  of  the  same 
month  the  Postmaster- General  published  a  second  letter, 
which  purported  to  be  in  answer  to  a  request  made  by 
some  citizens  of  Petersburg,  Va.,  that  he  should  adopt  a 
department  regulation  to  prevent  the  transmission  by  mail 
of  anti-slavery  papers  and  documents.  In  it  he  said  it 
was  not  in  his  power  to  obviate  the  evil  by  regulation,  but 
he  regarded  such  transmission  "  from  one  State  to  another 
as  a  violation  of  the  spirit,  if  not  the  letter,  of  the  Federal 
compact,  which  would  justify  on  the  part  of  the  injured 
States  any  measure  necessary  to  effect  their  exclusion." 
For  the  present  the  only  means  of  relief  was  in  responsi 
bilities  voluntarily  assumed  by  the  postmasters.  He  hoped 
Congress  would  at  the  next  session  put  a  stop  to  the  evil, 
and  pledged  his  exertions  to  promote  the  adoption  of  a 
measure  for  that  purpose. 

On  the  24th  of  the  same  month  he  wrote  to  the  post 
master  of  New  York  city,  advising  him  to  detain  anti- 
slavery  papers,  and  making  an  argument  for  the  propriety 
of  such  action. 

If  [wrote  he]  in  time  of  war  a  postmaster  should  detect  the 
letter  of  an  enemy,  a  spy,  passing  through  the  mail,  which,  if  it 
reached  its  destination,  would  expose  his  country  to  invasion 
and  her  armies  to  destruction,  ought  he  not  to  arrest  it  ?  Yet 
vrhere  is  his  legal  power  to  do  so  ? 

Mr.  Kendall's  three  letters  were  doubtless  intended  to 
prepare  the  public  mind  for  the  demands  of  the  slave 
States  and  of  President  Jackson  for  a  law  of  Congress  ex 
cluding  anti-slavery  papers  and  documents  from  the  mails, 


190  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

and  for  a  law  in  each  free  State  making  the  publication  of 
any  anti-slavery  article  a  misdemeanor,  and  providing  for 
the  delivery  of  any  person  in  a  free  State  indicted  in  a 
slave  State  for  circulating  there  an  anti-slavery  paper,  to 
the  agent  of  such  slave  State  for  trial  in  its  courts.  A  few 
of  these  demands  by  Southern  Legislatures  may  be  given 
as  specimens  of  all.  They  were  passed  early  in  the  winter 
of  1835-'36,  most  of  them  in  December : 

Resolved,  That  the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina,  having  every 
confidence  in  the  justice  and  friendship  of  the  non-slave-holding 
States,  announces  her  confident  expectation,  and  she  earnestly 
requests  that  the  governments  of  these  States  will  promptly  and 
effectually  suppress  all  those  associations  within  their  respective 
limits  purporting  to  be  abolition  societies.  (South  Carolina). 

The  General  Assembly  of  North  Carolina : 
Resolved,  That  our  sister  States  are  respectively  requested  to 
enact  penal  laws  prohibiting  the  printing  within  their  respective 
limits  all  such  publications  as  may  have  a  tendency  to  make  our 
slaves  discontented. 

The  Alabama  Legislature  resolved  : 

That  we  call  upon  our  sister  States  and  respectfully  request 
them  to  enact  such  penal  laws  as  will  finally  put  an  end  to  the 
malignant  deeds  of  the  abolitionists. 

The  Virginia  Legislature : 

Resolved,  That  the  non-slave-holding  States  of  the  Union  are 
respectfully  requested  promptly  to  enact  penal  enactments  or  take 
such  other  measures  as  will  effectually  suppress  all  associations 
within  their  respective  limits,  purporting  to  be  or  having  the 
character  of  abolition  societies. 

The  Georgia  Legislature : 

Resolved,  That  it  is  deeply  incumbent  on  the  people  of  the 
North  to  crush  the  traitorous  designs  of  the  abolitionists. 

The  resolutions  of  the  legislative  bodies  of  the  slave 
States  were  officially  communicated  to  the  governors  of 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  191 

the  Northern  States,  and  by  them  laid  before  their  respect 
ive  Legislatures. 

President  Jackson,  in  his  annual  message  to  Congress, 
in  December,  1835,  covered  so  precisely  the  two  grounds 
taken  by  the  slave- State  Legislatures  as  to  demonstrate 
concerted  action.  He  said  : 

I  must  also  invite  your  attention  to  the  painful  excitement 
produced  in  the  South  by  attempts  to  circulate  through  the  mails 
inflammatory  appeals  addressed  to  the  passions  of  the  slaves  in 
prints  and  in  various  sorts  of  publications  calculated  to  stimulate 
them  to  insurrection  and  to  produce  all  the  horrors  of  a  ser 
vile  war. 

If  "  the  misguided  persons  who  had  engaged  in  these 
unconstitutional  and  wicked  attempts  "  should  persist,  he 
did— 

not  doubt  that  the  non-slave-holding  States  would  exercise  their 
authority  in  suppressing  this  interference  with  the  Constitutional 
rights  of  the  South. 

He  recommended  to  Congress  the  passage  of  a  law  that 
would 

prohibit  under  severe  penalties  the  circulation  in  the  Southern 
States,  through  the  mail,  of  incendiary  publications  intended  to 
instigate  the  slaves  to  insurrection. 

This  part  of  the  message,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Calhoun, 
was  referred  to  a  select  committee  of  five,  of  whom  four 
were  from  the  slave  States.  The  bill  reported  was  as  fol 
lows  : 

Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  that  it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  any  deputy 
postmaster  in  any  State,  Territory,  or  district  of  the  United 
States  knowingly  to  deliver  to  any  person  whatsoever  any  pam 
phlet,  newspaper,  handbill,  or  other  paper,  or  pictorial  represen 
tation  touching  the  subject  of  slavery,  where,  by  the  laws  of  said 
State,  Territory,  or  district,  their  circulation  is  prohibited  ;  and 
any  deputy  postmaster  who  shall  be  guilty  thereof  shall  be  forth 
with  removed  from  office. 


192  JAMES  G.  BIKNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

This  bill  was  ordered  to  a  third  reading  in  the  Senate 
by  a  tie  vote  of  Senators  and  Vice- President  Van  Buren's 
casting  vote  in  the  affirmative. 

In  his  report  on  the  Senate  bill,  Mr.  Calhoun  spoke  of 
the  obligation  of  the  States  within  which — 
the  danger  [from  abolitionism]  originates,  to  arrest  its  further 
progress,  a  duty  they  owe  not  only  to  the  States  whose  institu 
tions  are  assailed,  but  to  the  Union  and  Constitution  .  .  .  and, 
it  may  be  added,  to  themselves. 

Early  in  the  winter  of  1835-'3G  an  effort  was  made  in 
every  free- State  Legislature  then  in  session  to  pass  bills 
against  the  freedom  of  the  press.  These  bills  were  sub 
stantially  the  same,  and  were  so  nearly  alike  in  form  as  to 
indicate  that  they  were  drawn  by  the  same  hand.  As  a 
specimen  of  them  I  give  in  the  note  *  the  text  of  the  one 
urged  in  New  York.  I  copy  it  from  the  "  Philanthropist " 
of  June  17,  1836,  which  copied  it  from  the  "  New  York 
Evening  Star,"  then  one  of  the  organs  of  the  Administra 
tion  and  edited  by  a  Federal  office-holder. 

*  An  act  to  secure  to  the  several  States  a  more  effectual  control  over 
their  slaves. 

Whereas,  the  Government  of  the  United  States  was  formed  in  the 
spirit  of  harmony  and  good  will,  for  mutual  protection  and  benefit,  and 
by  the  sacrifice  of  various  sectional  interests ;  and  ivhereas  the  relation 
of  master  and  slave  exists  in  many  of  the  States,  the  regulation  of  which 
constitutes  an  important  part  of  their  domestic  policy,  and  that  relation 
is  liable  to  be  disturbed,  and  the  peace  and  security  of  their  citizens  to 
be  put  in  jeopardy  by  the  agency  of  individuals  beyond  their  respective 
jurisdictions  ; 

Now,  therefore,  be  it  enacted  by  the  people  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
represented  in  the  Senate  and  Assembly,  and  they  do  enact  as  follows : 

SECTION  1.  All  writings  or  pictures,  made,  printed,  or  published  with 
in  this  State,  with  a  design  or  intent,  or  the  manifest  tendency  whereof 
shall  be,  to  excite  to,  or  cause  insurrection,  rebellion,  riot,  civil  commo 
tion,  or  breach  of  the  peace  among  the  slaves  in  any  part  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  or  with  the  design  or  intent,  or  the  manifest  tendency 
whereof  shall  be,  to  create  on  the  part  of  the  slaves  an  abandonment  of 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  193 

In  his  message  of  January,  1836,  TV.  L.  Marcy,  Gov 
ernor  of  New  York,  wrote  on  this  subject : 

Without  the  power  to  pass  such  laws,  the  States  would  not 
possess  all  the  necessary  means  for  preserving  their  external  rela 
tions  of  peace  among  themselves. 

The  New  York  Legislature  responded  to  the  senti 
ments  of  the  Governor  by  adopting  a  report  which  pledged 
the  faith  of  the  State  to  enact  such  laws  whenever  they 
shall  be  requisite.  February  2,  1836,  a  similar  bill  was 
reported  to  the  Legislature  of  Rhode  Island. 

the  service,  or  a  violation  of  the  duty  which  the  master  has  a  legal  right 
to  claim,  shall  be  deemed  a  misdemeanor  ;  all  persons  who  shall  make, 
print,  publish,  or  circulate,  or  shall  subscribe  or  contribute  money  or 
other  means  to  enable  any  other  person  to  make,  print,  publish,  or  circu 
late  any  such  writing  or  picture,  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  the  offense, 
and  shall  be  punished  by  fine  or  imprisonment,  or  both,  in  the  discretion 
of  the  court. 

SEC.  2.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Executive  of  this  State,  when 
ever  a  communication  shall  be  made  to  him  by  the  Executive  of  any  other 
of  the  United  States  setting  forth  that  a  citizen  of  this  State  has  been 
engaged  in  publishing  or  circulating  in  any  such  State  any  writing  or 
picture,  the  manifest  tendency  whereof  shall  be  to  cause  or  excite  to 
insurrection,  rebellion,  riot,  or  civil  commotion  among  the  slaves  of  such 
State,  to  transmit  such  communication,  with  all  proofs  accompanying  the 
same,  to  the  district  attorney  of  the  county  where  such  citizen  shall 
reside ;  and  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  said  district  attorney  to  lay  such  com 
munication  before  the  grand  jury,  which  shall  next  be  summoned  in  said 
county,  and  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  said  grand  jury  to  examine  such  com 
munication  and  proofs,  and  if  they  shall  find  thereupon,  or  upon  addi 
tional  evidence,  that  such  citizen  has  been  engaged  since  the  passing  of 
this  act  in  publishing  or  circulating,  either  personally  or  by  an  agent, 
within  such  other  State,  any  such  writing  or  picture,  they  shall  so  return 
to  the  court  before  which  such  grand  jury  was  summoned,  and  thereupon 
such  court  shall  take  order  for  the  arrest,  safe  custody,  or  forthcoming 
of  said  citizen ;  and  the  Executive  of  this  State  is  authorized,  upon  the 
demand  of  the  Executive  making  such  communication,  to  cause  such 
citizen  to  be  surrendered  and  delivered  up,  in  like  manner  as  is  provided 
in  case  of  fugitives  from  justice,  from  any  other  State." 
10 


194  JAMES  G.  BIENEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Edward  Everett,  the  Whig  Governor  of  Massachusetts, 
recommended  the  passage  of  a  bill.  He  said : 

Whatever  by  direct  and  necessary  operation  is  calculated  to 
excite  an  insurrection  among  the  States  has  been  held  by  highly 
respectable  and  legal  authority  an  offense  against  the  peace  of 
the  Commonwealth,  which  may  be  presented  as  a  misdemeanor  at 
common  law. 

About  the  same  time,  the  Hon.  William  Sullivan  of 
Boston,  an  eminent  lawyer  and  orator  and  a  leading  Whig, 
issued  a  pamphlet  on  the  subject.  In  this  he  wrote  : 

It  is  to  be  hoped  and  expected  that  Massachusetts  will  enact 
laws  declaring  the  printing,  publishing,  and  circulating  papers 
and  pamphlets  on  slavery,  and  also  the  holding  of  meetings  to 
discuss  slavery  and  abolition,  to  be  public  indictable  offenses. 

Before  and  during  the  efforts  in  the  free  States  by 
politicians  to  effect  the  passage  of  laws  against  freedom  of 
speech  and  of  the  press,  fraternal  appeals  and  threats  of 
disunion  came  in  rapid  alternation  from  public  meetings 
in  slave  States.  The  Southern  newspapers  clamored  in 
cessantly  for  action  by  the  free-State  Legislatures.  "  Up 
to  the  mark  the  North  must  come  if  it  would  restore 
tranquillity  and  preserve  the  Union,"  said  the  "  Richmond 
Whig."  The  Governor  of  Alabama  made  a  requisition  in 
September,  1835,  on  Governor  Marcy,  of  New  York,  for 
the  delivery  of  R.  G.  Williams,  publisher  of  the  "  New 
York  Emancipator,"  to  be  tried  under  the  laws  of  Ala 
bama. 

On  the  7th  of  January,  1836,  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  Mr.  Calhoun  made  another  demand  on  behalf  of 
the  slave  power.  This  was  the  suppression  of  the  right  of 
petition  in  any  matter  touching  slavery.  He  said  of  the 
petitions :  "  Nothing  will  stop  them  but  a  stern  refusal, 
by  closing  the  doors  to  them  and  refusing  to  receive 
them." 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  195 

In  the  House,  Mr.  Pinkney,  of  South  Carolina,  ob 
tained  February  8,  1836,  the  appointment  of  a  select  com 
mittee  on  anti-slavery  petitions,  and,  at  a  later  date,  the 
passage  of  a  resolution  that  all  such  petitions  should  be 
laid  on  the  table  without  being  either  printed  or  referred, 
and  that  no  further  action  shall  be  had  thereon. 

In  the  summer  of  1835,  President  Jackson  sent  a  mili 
tary  force  to  compel  the  Seminole  Indians  to  remove  be 
yond  the  Mississippi  from  Florida,  without  taking  with 
them  the  colored  or  half-breed  members  of  the  tribe.  The 
Seminoles  refused.  On  the  21st  of  January,  1836,  by  or 
der  of  President  Jackson,  the  Secretary  of  War  wrote  to 
the  general  commanding  in  Florida : 

I  have  to  ask  your  particular  attention  to  the  measures  indi 
cated  to  prevent  the  removal  of  those  negroes,  and  to  insure  their 
restoration.  You  will  allow  no  terms  to  the  Indians  until  every 
living  slave  in  their  possession  belonging  to  a  white  man  is 
given  up. 

As  the  Indians  were  most  of  them  of  mixed  blood,  half 
and  quarter  breeds,  descendants  in  part  of  fugitive  slaves, 
the  claims  could  not  be  accepted  by  the  Seminoles.  The 
result  was  a  seven  years'  war,  at  a  cost  to  the  United 
States  of  some  thirty  millions  of  dollars,  brought  on  by 
President  Jackson  on  his  own  responsibility.  The  politi 
cal  object  was  to  place  slavery  on  the  footing  of  a  national 
institution,  to  be  protected  by  the  National  Government 
with  all  its  power.* 

The  next  measure  on  the  programme  of  the  slave  power 
for  1835  was  an  insurrection  in  Texas.  This  broke  out 
in  the  summer.  "  Committees  of  safety  "  were  formed, 
and  the  organization  of  rebel  troops  pushed  with  great 
activity.  Armed  bodies  of  adventurers  assembled  in  dif- 

*  For  all  the  facts  of  the  Seminole  War,  see  speeches  and  works  of 
Hon.  J.  II.  Giddings. 


196  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ferent  parts  of  the  Southwest  and  crossed  the  border  into 
Mexico  without  any  hindrance  by  the  authorities  of  the 
United  States.  From  that  time  hostilities  continued  until 
Texas  was  wrested  from  our  sister  republic.  No  one 
doubts  now  that  the  movement  was  fomented  and  organ 
ized  by  secret  emissaries  from  the  Administration  of  the 
United  States  Government,  with  the  distinct  intention  on 
the  part  of  the  political  South  to  annex  Texas  to  this 
Union  as  slave  territory,  to  be  divided  in  time  into  from 
five  to  ten  States. 

Mob  violence  wherever  practicable  was  also  a  part  of 
the  system  of  operations.  The  mobs  of  July  in  Philadel 
phia  and  New  York  city  were  instigated  and  led  by 
slave-holders  who,  by  arrangement,  had  met  there  in  large 
numbers.  It  was  a  meeting  of  this  class  in  New  York 
city,  on  July  10th,  that  called  by  advertisement  and  plac 
ards  a  general  meeting  of  Southerners,  to  be  held  on  the 
20th  of  the  month,  in  Tammany  Hall.  A  reporter  who 
was  taking  notes  of  the  proceedings  was  promptly  ejected. 
July  25th,  Amos  Dresser,  an  inoffensive  Bible  agent  from 
the  North,  was  publicly  whipped  on  the  bare  back  by  a 
mob  of  leading  citizens  on  the  public  square  of  Nashville, 
Tenn.  July  29th  was  the  date  of  burning  the  Northern 
newspapers  by  the  first  citizens  of  Charleston,  S.  C.  Au 
gust  11,  Dr.  Crandall,  a  respectable  physician,  was  thrown 
into  jail  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  detained  there 
eight  months  on  the  charge  of  having  an  anti-slavery 
newspaper  in  his  trunk.  September  6th,  five  Northern 
men  were  hung  by  a  mob  of  gentlemen  at  Vicksburg,  and 
a  rumor  was  spread  of  an  insurrection  plotted  among  the 
slaves.  In  the  resulting  panic,  twenty-six  men,  most  of 
them  Northern,  were  hung  or  shot  by  mobs  in  different 
parts  of  Mississippi.  The  Vicksburg  murders  were 
apologized  for  on  the  ground  that  the  victims  were  gam 
blers,  and  the  others  were  never  investigated,  the  Missis- 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  197 

sippi  press  passing  them  without  remark.  The  rumor  was 
afterward  admitted  to  have  had  no  foundation  in  fact ; 
and  it  was  doubtless  started  as  a  pretext  for  the  murder 
ous  raid  on  Northern  residents  and  as  a  means  of  driving 
the  slave-holders  generally  into  a  frenzied  excitement 
against  Northern  men. 

September  5th,  a  town-meeting  held  at  Clinton,  Miss., 
passed  a  resolution  which  was  aimed  at  Mr.  Birney's  pro 
posed  paper.  It  was : 

Resolved  that  we  would  regard  the  establishment  of  an  aboli 
tion  newspaper  among  us  as  a  direct  attempt  to  peril  the  lives 
and  fortunes  of  the  whole  population,  and  that  it  will  be  the  duty 
of  every  good  citizen  to  break  up,  by  any  means  that  may  be 
necessary,  any  such  nefarious  design.  (u  Philanthropist,"  June 
10,  1836). 

September  17th,  the  grand  jury  of  Oneida  County, 
N.  Y.,  under  the  promptings  of  a  law  officer  of  the  United 
States,  presented  abolition  publications  as  nuisances.  Oc 
tober  15th,  the  Committee  of  Vigilance  of  Feliciana  Par 
ish,  La.,  offered  a  reward  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  for  the 
delivery  to  it  of  Arthur  Tappan.  October  21st,  the  New 
York  Anti-Slavery  Convention  at  Utica  was  broken  up  by 
a  body  of  men  headed  by  Samuel  Beardsly,  a  Democratic 
member  of  Congress,  and  two  Federal  office-holders.  On 
the  invitation  of  Gerrit  Smith,  of  Peterboro,  the  delegates 
adjourned  to  that  village,  and  organized  there  the  New 
York  State  Anti-Slavery  Society,  with  a  membership  of 
nearly  a  thousand  persons.  The  object  of  the  Utica  rioters 
was  to  prevent  the  sitting  of  the  convention  in  that  city ; 
and  not  to  maltreat  any  of  its  members.  On  the  same  day, 
at  Boston,  a  mob  of  "  gentlemen  of  property  and  stand 
ing  "  assembled  for  the  purpose  of  tarring  and  feathering 
George  Thompson,  of  England,  the  eloquent  lecturer  on 
abolition.  This  gentleman  had  come  to  New  England  in 


198  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

September,  1834,  on  the  invitation  of  Mr.  Garrison,  and 
had  been  extremely  active  as  a  speaker  on  slavery  as  it 
existed  in  the  Southern  States.  This  intervention  of  a 
foreigner  in  what  was  regarded  by  most  Americans  as  a 
purely  domestic  question  excited  a  strong  prejudice 
against  Mr.  Thompson.  He  was  followed  with  persistent 
misrepresentation  in  the  newspapers ;  and  an  unguarded 
hypothetical  argument  of  his,  making  logical  deductions 
from  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  exposed  him  to  the 
plausible  charge  of  advising  slaves  to  cut  their  master's 
throats.  The  excitement  caused  by  this  imprudent  speech 
offered  the  pro-slavery  managers  a  good  occasion  to  foment 
a  mob  in  Boston — a  thing  up  to  that  time  deemed  to  be 
an  impossibility  in  that  city  of  law  and  order,  free  speech, 
and  anti-slavery  sentiment.  The  announcement  that  Mr. 
Thompson  would  address  a  meeting  of  Boston  ladies  in 
the  afternoon  of  the  21st  of  October  caused  a  hue  and  cry 
to  be  raised  by  the  city  newspapers  against  "  the  foreign 
incendiary,"  the  "  English  cut-throat,  etc.  Placards  were 
posted  over  the  city  naming  the  time  and  place,  and  stir 
ring  up  the  mob  to  "  snake  him  out,"  and  "  tar  and 
feather  "  him.  Mr.  Thompson  abandoned  his  intention 
to  speak,  and  in  the  forenoon  the  mayor  was  notified  of 
the  fact.  Under  the  supposition  that  Mr.  Thompson's 
absence  would  be  generally  known,  and  would  prevent  the 
assemblage  of  the  mob,  the  ladies  met  in  a  room  adjoining 
the  anti-slavery  rooms.  The  doings  of  this  mob  have 
been  celebrated  in  anniversary  meetings  of  abolitionists 
and  have  been  the  subject  of  more  controversy  than  those 
of  any  other  of  that  period.  Ko  lives  were  lost,  however, 
and  very  little  property.  It  is  memorable  as  being  the 
only  mob  in  Boston  in  the  decennium  ending  with  1840; 
and  as  being  the  only  one  of  any  note  in  the  Northern 
States  during  that  period  that  was  not  caused  mainly  by 
the  intrigues  of  politicians.  An  incidental  good  result  of 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  199 

it  was  to  open  the  eyes  of  thoughtful  anti-slavery  men  to 
the  unwisdom,  of  inviting  public  speakers  from  England 
to  take  an  active  part  in  the  agitations  of  our  domestic 
politics.  Mr.  Thompson  went  back  to  England  imme 
diately  ;  but,  good  and  eloquent  though  he  was,  his  visit 
exposed  the  American  abolitionists  for  many  years  to  the 
damaging  charge  of  receiving  English  gold  for  promoting 
English  policy.  The  charge  appealed  strongly  to  what 
was  in  that  day  a  powerful  popular  prejudice. 

The  foregoing  part  of  this  chapter  is  a  rapid  and  neces 
sarily  imperfect  sketch  of  the  programme  devised  by  the 
slave  power  for  its  operations  beginning  in  the  early  sum 
mer  of  1835.  Every  measure  was  aggressive.  The  cru 
sade  against  free  mails,  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the 
press,  the  right  of  petition  and  trial  by  jury ;  the  costly 
war  to  enslave  the  majority  of  the  Seminoles,  undertaken 
without  authority  of  Congress ;  the  connivance  of  the  Ad 
ministration  with  the  organization  within  the  United 
States  of  armed  parties  which  avowed  the  purpose  to  con 
quer  a  province  from  a  republic  with  which  we  were  at 
peace  and  add  it  as  slave  States  to  the  Union ;  the  at 
tempted  ostracism,  social  and  political,  of  every  American 
citizen  who  would  not  bow  the  knee  at  the  new  altar 
erected  to  the  dark  spirit  of  slavery ;  the  reign  of  terror 
at  the  South,  with  its  inquisition  into  opinion,  lynchings, 
expulsions,  and  murders  of  men  from  the  free  States ;  the 
mobs  excited  at  the  North  by  the  inflammatory  appeals 
of  the  political  press  and  the  active  exertions  of  party 
wire- workers — these  were  war  measures  in  a  time  of  peace 
precipitated  upon  the  country  by  an  oligarchy  led  by  able 
and  brave  men  determined  to  rule  or  ruin,  wielding  all 
the  powers  and  patronage  of  the  Administration  with  the 
influence  of  the  Federal  judiciary,  and  apparently  control 
ling  the  majority  of  each  House  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  They  were  re-enforced  by  pathetic  appeals 


200  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

addressed  to  the  humanity,  fraternal  affection,  and  gener 
osity  of  Northern  men  and  women  to  save  Southern  wives, 
mothers,  and  children  from  the  bloody  horrors  of  servile 
insurrection ;  by  arguments  to  prove  slavery  a  patriarchal 
and  biblical  institution,  the  beneficent  result  of  which 
would  be  to  elevate  the  barbarians  of  Africa  to  the  high 
plane  of  Christian  civilization ;  by  new  theories'  of  the 
national  Constitution  which  interpolated  in  that  instru 
ment  guarantees  for  the  existence  and  protection  of  slav 
ery  and  stamped  as  misprision  of  treason  any  opposition 
to  that  institution.  Quiet  submission  to  the  demands  of 
the  slave  power  was  represented  as  the  only  means  of 
averting  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  ! 

At  the  time  the  first  of  the  above  great  measures — 
the  destruction  of  the  freedom  of  the  mails — was  an 
nounced,  there  was  no  organization  which  represented  the 
national  sentiment.  The  leaders  of  the  two  political  par 
ties  were  either  involved  in  the  great  conspiracy  or  were 
"dumb  dogs  that  did  not  bark."  Aspirants  for  presi 
dential  honors  dared  not  risk  the  loss  of  the  Southern 
vote.  The  national  conventions  of  the  Democratic  and 
Whig  parties  in  1836  passed  in  silence  the  pending  as 
saults  by  the  Executive  on  the  liberties  of  the  people ;  the 
party  press  uttered  no  warning  ;  and  the  leading  churches 
deprecated  agitation  as  the  forerunner  of  schism,  and 
cried  "  Peace !  Peace  !  " 

The  outlook  was  gloomy.  Until  the  spring  of  1830 
there  was  hardly  a  rift  in  the  dark  clouds  that  overhung 
the  future  of  this  republic. 

Fortunately  for  the  progress  of  civilization,  the  sober 
second  thought  of  the  people  is  stronger  under  democratic 
institutions  than  any  other  force.  Before  the  end  of  the 
winter  the  reaction  had  become  strong  enough  to  satisfy 
members  of  Congress  of  the  imprudence  of  establishing  a 
despotism  over  the  mails,  and  to  satisfy  members  of  the 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PAETY.   201 

Legislatures  of  the  free  States  that  popular  opinion  would 
not  sustain  any  law  to  muzzle  the  press  or  to  make  extra 
dition  of  citizens  for  trial  in  slave  States  on  charges  of 
circulating  anti-slavery  documents.  Mr.  Calhoun's  bill  in 
relation  to  the  United  States  mails  was  defeated  on  its 
final  passage,  though  the  Senate  had  voted  its  third  read 
ing.  Not  a  single  free  State  enacted  the  law  against  the 
press  as  demanded.  The  slave  power  had  underestimated 
the  strength  of  the  attachment  of  the  people  to  its  liber 
ties,  and  its  first  combined  assault  upon  them,  intended 
and  expected  to  be  overwhelming,  had  failed  at  the  most 
important  point. 

The  tidal  wave  of  the  slave  power  had  broken  into 
foam  on  the  solid  rock  of  public  opinion,  and  receded 
never  again  to  rise  so  high  until  the  rebellion. 

In  this  reaction  of  1835-'36  lay  the  germ  of  the  Na 
tional  Eepublican  party.  It  was  of  slow  but  of  sure 
growth,  extending  unseen  its  fibrous  roots  to  all  parts  of 
the  North.  It  first  showed  itself  in  politics  with  the 
motto,  "  Vote  for  no  man  who  votes  against  freedom," 
and  in  asserting  the  right  of  petition  and  of  trial  by 
jury,  and  of  freedom  of  the  press  and  of  speech;  next 
in  balance-of -power  combinations  to  carry  nominations  in 
the  conventions  of  the  dominant  parties,  State  and  na 
tional  ;  then  in  independent  nominations  for  Congress 
and  State  offices ;  afterward  in  the  nomination  of  candi 
dates  for  President  and  Vice-President  and  the  formation 
of  a  national  party  independent  of  any  other  which  acted 
in  1840  without  official  name,  but  under  the  popular  des 
ignations  of  "  Free  Democratic,"  "  Abolition,"  "  National 
Republican,"  and  "  Freedom  "  party ;  in  1844  giving  itself 
the  name  of  "  Liberty  party  " ;  in  1848  and  1852  of  the 
Free-Soil  party ;  and  in  1856,  after  the  beginning  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  struggle  for  freedom,  of  the  "  National 
Republican"  party — maintaining  under  all  changes  of 


202  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

name  the  same  principles  and  substantially  the  same  plat 
form. 

The  gradual  growth  of  such  a  party  was  a  necessary 
result  of  the  formation  in  1820  of  the  "  Solid  South,"  of 
the  determined  effort  of  the  slave  power  in  1835-'36  to 
overthrow  the  strongest  bulwarks  of  individual  liberty,  of 
its  subsequent  persistent  and  arrogant  encroachments  on 
the  Constitution,  and  of  its  repeated  attempts  to  extend 
slavery  to  the  Territories,  to  establish  the  right  of  slave 
holders  to  hold  their  alleged  property  in  free  States  in  de 
fiance  of  the  local  law,  and  to  make  the  protection,  pres 
ervation,  and  extension  of  slavery  the  chief  object  of  what 
they  were  pleased  to  call  the  confederacy  of  States.  John 
C.  Calhoun  foresaw  and  predicted  the  formation  of  such 
a  party.  In  his  report  to  the  Senate  accompanying  the 
bill  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  the  mails,  he  predicts  that, 
if  the  abolitionists  should  be  allowed  to  persist,  "  the  art 
ful  and  profligate  "  would  in  time  "  unite  with  the  fanat 
ics  and  make  their  movements  the  basis  of  a  powerful 
political  party  that  will  seek  advancement  by  diffusing 
as  widely  as  possible  hatred  against  the  slave  -  holding 
States." 

One  of  the  clearest  teachings  of  the  history  of  the 
United  States  is  that  the  formation  of  a  "  powerful  polit 
ical  party "  to  extend  and  perpetuate  slavery  and  make 
cotton  the  absolute  king,  preceded  the  formation  of  the 
party  of  resistance.  The  moral  reprobation  of  slavery  by 
the  North  and  the  Christian  world  generally  had  never 
abolished  that  curse  or  seemed  to  affect  it.  Milton,  Cow- 
per,  Clarkson,  Jonathan  Edwards,  Wesley,  Lundy,  Bourne, 
Kenrick,  Torrey,  Eankin,  Duncan,  Doak,  Crowe,  and 
thousands  of  faithful  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  had  for  cent 
uries  hurled  against  it  the  thunders  of  Divine  truth  and 
the  human  sense  of  wrong,  but  no  man  stirred  to  organize 
a  national  political  party  against  it. 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY.  203 

If  the  slave  power  had  been  content  to  maintain  slav 
ery  without  extending  it,  had  treated  it  as  local  and  not 
national,  and  had  kept  hands  off  the  liberties  of  indi 
vidual  citizens  and  of  the  free  States,  no  political  party 
would  have  been  formed  against  it.  In  its  inception 
and  growth  the  Republican  party  was  one  for  defense 
only. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

THE    CINCINNATI  MOB   OF  JANUARY,  1836. 

THE  removal  of  Mr.  Birney  from  Kentucky  to  the 
leading  commercial  city  of  Ohio  was  generally  understood 
to  have  been  made  for  the  purpose  of  publishing  there  a 
weekly  anti-slavery  paper.  He  had  hardly  established 
himself  in  his  new  domicile  before  the  leading  political 
Southern  dailies  opened  fire  on  him  and  his  project.  The 
most  moderate  article  was  the  following  by  Mr.  Prentice, 
of  the  Louisville  "  Journal "  : 

We  have  little  doubt  that  his  office  will  be  torn  down,  but  we 
trust  that  Mr.  Birney  will  receive  no  personal  harm.  Notwith 
standing  his  mad  notions,  we  consider  him  an  honest  and  benevo 
lent  man.  He  is  resolute,  too.  Not  having  been  permitted  to 
open  his  battery  in  this  State,  he  is  determined  to  cannonade  us 
from  across  the  river.  Isn't  it  rather  too  long  a  shot  for  execu 
tion,  Mr.  Birney  ? 

On  the  18th  of  October  the  slave-holders  of  Limestone 
County,  Alabama,  at  a  public  meeting  denounced  him  by 
name,  printing  it  in  capital  letters,  as  one  of  the  heads 
"  of  an  organized  band  of  abolition  fanatics  of  the  North 
ern  States,"  and  appointed  a  vigilance  committee  of  twenty 
persons,  among  whose  duties  was  that  of  detecting  any  per 
son  that  may  attempt  to  circulate  among  the  community 
"  any  seditious  publications  of  any  kind  whatever,"  and 
"  upon  proof  of  such  fact  to  inflict  upon  such  person  or 
persons  death"  etc. 


THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,   1836.      205 

His  visit  to  Cincinnati  in  August,  1835,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  conferring  with  friends  there,  was  an  occasion  for 
the  publication  of  unfriendly  paragraphs  in  three  of  the 
four  city  dailies— the  "  Poet,'1  the  "  Whig,"  and  the  "  Re 
publican."  In  these  the  abolitionists  were  termed  "  fanat 
ical,"  "  miserable,"  and  "  misguided,"  and  their  papers 
"  vile  incendiary  publications."  "  What  ought  to  be  done 
with  them  ?  "  asked  the  "  Post."  "  We  would  say  :  Send 
them  back  to  the  place  from  whence  they  came,  and  if 
any  of  their  authors,  or  the  agents  of  them,  should  be 
found  here,  lynch  them." 

The  "  Whig "  was  the  recognized  organ  of  the  party 
whose  name  it  bore,  and  the  two  other  dailies  named  sus 
tained  the  same  relation  to  the  Democratic  party.  Mr. 
Birney's  arrival  in  Cincinnati  in  October  was  the  signal 
for  broadsides  of  malignant  abuse  in  these  political  sheets, 
whose  common  object  seemed  to  be  to  mark  Mr.  Birney 
as  an  outlaw  and  proper  object  of  violence  at  the  hands  of 
the  rabble. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  united  efforts  of  the  three 
papers  and  of  the  politicians  who  supported  them  would 
have  resulted  in  a  mob  in  October  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  powerful  intervention  of  Charles  Hammond,  the  vet 
eran  editor  of  the  "  Gazette,"  which  was  the  leading  com 
mercial  daily  in  the  city.  Hammond  was  an  able  lawyer, 
a  forcible  writer,  an  old  citizen,  and  a  man  of  influence. 
He  was  noted  for  his  personal  independence,  which  exhib 
ited  itself  in  his  refusal  to  wear  a  party  yoke  without 
trimming  it  to  fit  his  neck,  in  wearing  a  long  queue,  and 
in  contempt  for  many  social  usages.  In  the  presidential 
campaign  of  1824  he  had  denounced  Jackson  as  a  slave 
holder  and  the  Southern  politicians  as  aiming  at  the  mo 
nopoly  of  political  power.  He  approved  the  Ohio  laws 
that  oppressed  the  blacks,  believed  in  giving  up  fugitive 
slaves,  and  thought  abolitionists  mistaken  and  fanatical. 


206  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Per  contra,  he  was  a  decided  advocate  of  free  speech,  a 
free  press,  the  right  of  petition,  and  resistance  to  the  en 
croachments  of  the  slave  power  on  the  rights  of  the  free 
States.  In  many  points  of  character  and  doctrine  he 
resembled  John  Quincy  Adams.  Unfortunately  for  his 
permanent  fame,  he  had  not  taken  the  temperance  pledge. 
In  1835  he  rose  to  the  highest  point  of  his  career.  He 
rebuked  with  dignity  and  force  his  fellow-editors  for  their 
course,  censured  the  attempt  to  excite  mob  violence,  and 
vindicated  the  rights  of  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the 
press.  He  denounced  the  lynching  at  Nashville  as  a 
crime,  published  Dresser's  narrative,  and  notified  the 
South  not  to  ask  its  Northern  friends  to  justify  or  even 
palliate  such  an  outrage.  As  to  Mr.  Birney,  who  was  a 
gentleman  of  character,  intelligence,  and  property,  if  he 
should  choose  to  publish  a  paper  at  Cincinnati  and  discuss 
slavery,  that  was  his  right ;  to  deny  it  to  him,  or  to  molest 
him  for  its  exercise,  would  be  the  act  of  men  recreant  to 
the  foundation  principle  of  American  institutions.  This 
vigorous  attack  from  an  expected  ally  caused  a  temporary 
halt  of  the  mobocratic  forces. 

For  some  weeks  after  reaching  Cincinnati  Mr.  Birney 
was  busy  in  furnishing  his  house  and  calling  on  his  ac 
quaintances.  He  presented  his  letters  of  membership  to 
the  Sixth  Street  Presbyterian  Church,  then  under  the  pas 
toral  charge  of  the  Rev.  Heman  Norton.  His  affability 
and  pleasing  address  extended  rapidly  his  circle  of  ac 
quaintances  and  friends,  and  his  intelligence  and  social 
tact  commended  him  to  the  best  citizens.  Before  the  end 
of  the  year  he  numbered  among  his  visitors  Salmon  P. 
Chase,  Samuel  Eells,  William  D.  Gallagher,  the  poet, 
Charles  Hammond,  Henry  Starr,  United  States  Senator 
Thomas  Morris,  Alexander  Kinmont,  the  teacher,  Dr. 
Drake,  Dr.  Nash  McDowell,  and  other  men  of  distinction. 
In  October  he  wrote  an  "  Address  to  the  Women  of  Ohio," 


THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,  1836.     207 

a  pamphlet  of  sixteen  pages,  asking  their  participation  in 
the  anti-slavery  work.  This  was  in  development  of  a  reso 
lution  he  had  offered  at  the  April  meeting  of  the  State 
society.  On  the  9th  of  December  he  published  a  pam 
phlet  of  forty  pages,  ostensibly  as  an  answer  to  the  denun 
ciatory  resolutions  of  the  slave-holders  of  Limestone 
County,  Alabama.  This  is  known  as  his  "Vindication 
of  Abolitionists,"  and  was  generally  regarded  as  an  answer 
to  the  abusive  epithets  in  the  message  of  President  Jack 
son.  It  went  through  several  editions,  and  was  republished 
in  Boston  in  1836  in  a  collection  called  "  Valuable  Docu 
ments."  Meanwhile  the  political  leaders  were  restless  with 
anxiety  to  find  some  cause  of  complaint  against  him. 
Several  of  them  made  pretexts  to  call  on  him  and  talk  of 
abolition,  hoping  to  entrap  him  into  some  unguarded  ex 
pression  ;  but  his  habitual  reticence  about  himself  and  his 
plans  baffled  while  his  courtesy  disarmed  them.  On  the 
1st  of  November  the  city  mayor,  the  city  marshal,  and  the 
county  sheriff,  called  on  him  as  guardians  of  the  peace,  to 
complain  of  the  publication  of  "  a  very  exciting  handbill " 
alleged  to  have  been  issued  by  the  City  Anti- Slavery  So 
ciety.  They  assured  him  that  it  had  caused  great  popular 
excitement,  and  that  on  that  very  night  his  house  and  the 
office,  where  the  handbill  had  been  printed,  would  prob 
ably  be  destroyed. 

He  answered  good-naturedly,  thanking  them  for  the 
personal  interest  they  had  expressed  for  him.  He  took 
pleasure,  he  said,  in  assuring  them  that  no  handbill  had 
been  published,  but  that  the  city  society  had,  in  accord 
ance  with  usage,  printed  its  constitution.  He  thought 
that  a  contradiction  by  them  of  the  rumor  would  allay 
any  excitement,  and  their  power  was  quite  sufficient  to 
suppress  any  mob.  Then,  passing  to  another  subject,  he 
detained  them  in  friendly  conversation,  giving  them  no 
opportunity  to  utter  the  menace  they  had  evidently  come 


208  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

with  the  purpose  of  giving.  They  retired  foiled  and  dis 
concerted.  There  was  no  mob  that  night ;  and  Mr.  Birney 
had  expected  none,  but  he  was  not  surprised  when,  a  few 
days  later,  he  was  notified  by  the  mayor,  that,  in  the  event 
of  his  persisting  in  his  design  to  publish  an  anti-slavery 
paper  in  the  city,  the  authorities  would  not  be  able  to  pro 
tect  either  his  property  or  his  person  from  the  fury  of  the 
mob. 

This  pretense  of  fright  did  not  impose  upon  Mr. 
Birney.  During  his  month's  residence  in  the  city,  he  had 
come  into  contact  with  many  people  of  all  classes ;  he  had 
visited  the  shops  and  manufacturing  districts,  had  trav 
ersed  the  streets  in  every  direction,  his  person  was  well 
known  to  thousands,  and  he  had  been  always  treated  with 
respectful  politeness.  His  inference  from  the  mayor's  noti 
fication  was,  not  that  there  was  a  strong  popular  feeling 
against  him,  but  that  the  mayor  would  connive  at  violence 
and  withhold  from  him  and  his  property  the  protection  of 
the  police  force.  In  this  event,  he  would  be  helpless. 

He  began  to  think,  therefore,  that  it  might  be  expedi 
ent  for  him  to  begin  the  publication  of  the  "  Philanthro 
pist  "  at  some  point  outside  of  the  jurisdiction  of  Mayor 
Davies.  He  was  confirmed  in  this  view  by  his  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  public  opinion  had  been  affected  by  the 
constantly  repeated  newspaper  charges  against  him  of  dis 
loyalty  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  inten 
tion  to  excite  the  slaves  to  insurrection.  He  believed  that 
a  few  numbers  of  the  paper  would  vindicate  him  in  both 
these  respects. 

On  the  25th  of  November  Mr.  Birney  wrote  to  Gerrit 
Smith : 

The  solicitations  from  various  quarters  that  my  paper  should 
be  published  have  become  so  importunate  that  I  have  determined 
to  go  on  with  such  resources  as  I  myself  can  command.  ...  I 
shall  commence  the  paper  in  a  small  village  (New  Richmond) 


THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,   1836.      209 

about  twenty  miles  up  the  river  from  this  place ;  or,  if  not  there, 
at  one  (Ripley)  about  fifty  miles  above,  where  I  can  print  without 
being  mobbed,  but  with  the  expectation  of  making  way  for  the 
introduction  of  the  press  in  a  few  months  into  this  city.  .  .  .  All 
I  expect  is  to  keep  from  losing  anything  by  the  paper;  but  a 
paper  out  here  we  must  have. 

Having  selected  New  Richmond  as  the  place  of  publi 
cation,  he  issued  his  prospectus  early  in  December,  and 
spent  the  rest  of  the  month  in  equipping  a  printing-office, 
engaging  printers,  writing  editorials,  and  making  a  flying 
visit  to  the  capital  of  the  State.  There  he  addressed  a 
committee  of  the  Legislature  in  opposition  to  the  Jackson 
bill  against  the  freedom  of  the  press. 

Meanwhile  his  enemies  kept  all  his  movements  under 
the  closest  espionage.  A  running  fire  of  newspaper  para 
graphs  was  kept  up  against  him  in  Cincinnati  during  De 
cember.  The  following  is  a  specimen : 

Abolition  Paper. — We  perceive  by  a  notice  in  the  u  Chris 
tian  Journal "  that  James  G.  Birney  is  about  to  commence  his 
abolition  paper  at  New  Richmond,  Clermont  County.  Finding 
that  his  fanatical  project  would  not  be  tolerated  at  Danville, 
Ky.,  nor  in  this  city,  he  has  at  length  settled  himself  on  the 
border  of  Kentucky,  and  so  near  Cincinnati  as  to  make  the 
pestiferous  breath  of  his  paper  spread  contagion  among  our  cit 
izens.  We  deem  this  new  effort  an  insult  to  our  slave-holding 
neighbors  and  an  attempt  to  browbeat  public  opinion  in  this  quarter. 
We  do,  therefore,  hope,  notwithstanding  the  alleged  respectabil 
ity  of  the  editor,  that  he  will  find  the  public  so  inexorably  averse 
to  his  mad  scheme  that  he  will  deem  it  his  interest  to  abandon  it. 
("Cincinnati  Whig,"  December  21.) 

On  the  31st  December  he  wrote  to  Gerrit  Smith : 

The  proceedings  in  Congress  show  to  my  judgment  that  the 
cause  of  freedom  to  the  slave,  as  well  as  to  the  white,  is  working 
well.  When  your  Northern  folks  have  their  ears  pulled  a  little 
longer  by  the  Southern  aristocrats  their  pluck  will  doubtless 
begin  to  rise.  I  am  glad  the  subject  of  abolition  has  been  intro- 


210  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

duced  in  Congress  in  any  way.  It  can  not  lose,  no  matter  how 
it  comes  into  debate.  .  .  .  My  paper  will  probably  be  issued  to 
morrow.  It  will  be  received  here  the  next  day  after  publication. 
I  know  not  how  our  friends  in  the  West  will  support  it — not  well 
enough,  I  fear,  to  keep  me  from  losing  ...  about  $1,000  or 
$1,200  (to  which  I  have  made  up  my  mind)  for  one  year's  experi 
ment. 

The  publication  of  this  first  number  was  eagerly  await 
ed  by  his  enemies,  who  hoped  to  find  in  it  some  passage 
that  might  be  quoted  to  inflame  the  passions  of  the  popu 
lace. 

No  such  passage  could  be  found.  In  his  leading  arti 
cle,  the  editor  maintained  that  "  such  publications  as  the 
4  Philanthropist '  purposes  to  be,  have  become  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  preservation  of  liberty  in  what  are  called 
the  free  States.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  liberty  and  slavery  can 
not  both  live  in  juxtaposition.'' 

That  the  first  number  of  the  "  Philanthropist "  was 
unexceptionable  did  not  prevent  the  renewal  of  the  at 
tempts  to  excite  a  mob  against  the  editor.  The  Cincinnati 
dailies,  except  the  "  Gazette,"  quoted  paragraphs  from  the 
Kentucky,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  papers,  calling  upon 
the  merchants  and  manufacturers  of  Cincinnati  to  prevent 
the  publication  of  the  "  incendiary  "  sheet.  The  proofs 
that  the  plot  against  him  was  confined  to  a  few  party 
wire- workers  and  their  tools  were  so  abundant  that,  in  the 
second  number  of  his  paper  (issued  Jan.  8,  1836)  he  said : 

It  is  remarkable  that  no  mob  has  ever  attacked  the  abolition 
ists  except  after  special  training  by  politicians  who  had  some 
thing  to  hope  from  the  favor  of  the  South.  The  people  of  whom 
mobs  are  composed  .  .  .  care  not  a  rush  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  and,  if  left  to  themselves,  would  as  soon  think  of  attack 
ing  the  phrenologists  as  the  abolitionists.  It  is  to  the  editors  of 
a  venal  press,  to  the  expectants  of  office,  in  the  shape  of  Congress 
men,  judges,  postmasters,  etc.,  that  we  are  to  look  for  the  cause 
of  these  frequent  and  shameful  outrages. 


THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,  1836.      211 

This  article  will  be  found  by  the  student  of  history  to 
be  the  key  to  the  motives  of  the  instigators  of  mobs  in  the 
free  States  during  the  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  Admin 
istrations,  except  a  few  caused  directly  by  slave-holders. 

In  the  warfare  on  Mr.  Birney,  the  Democratic  and 
Whig  newspaper  organs  worked  in  concert  to  inflame  the 
populace. 

January  16th,  the  "  Cincinnati  Republican,"  the  Demo 
cratic  organ,  devoted  an  article  a  column  long  to  Mr. 
Birney.  The  following  is  a  specimen  of  its  style : 

This  new  laborer  in  the  unholy  and  unpatriotic  cause  of  aboli 
tion  goes  even  beyond  Garrison  or  Thompson  in  his  uncompro 
mising  hostility  to  slavery,  and  in  his  zeal  for  unqualified  and 
immediate  emancipation,  and,  we  doubt  not,  the  editor,  if  en 
couraged  to  promulgate  his  abolition  firebrands  among  our  citizens 
in  the  spirit  in  which  he  has  commenced,  will  win  for  himself  as 
notorious  and  infamous  a  character  as  that  which  now  distin 
guishes  the  two  individuals  above  mentioned.  .  .  .  But  the 
editor  of  the  "Philanthropist "  has  not  the  plea  of  ignorance;  he 
is  a  man  of  education  and  talents.  .  .  .  The  editor  rings  the 
changes  upon  "incendiary  missiles"  and  "the  dissolution  of 
the  Union." 

This  false  and  inflammatory  article  was  republished 
next  day  in  the  "  Whig,"  and  the  suggestion  made  "  that 
a  meeting  of  our  citizens  be  called  to  take  this  matter  into 
consideration."  On  the  22d  the  "  Republican  "  appealed 
to  the  capitalists,  merchants,  and  tradesmen  to  suppress 
the  City  Abolition  Society ;  the  street  corners  were  posted 
with  a  placard,  and  each  daily  newspaper  advertised  a  call 
for  a  public  meeting,  to  be  held  that  evening  at  the  court 
house,  of  citizens  opposed  "  to  the  course  now  pursuing  by 
those  individuals  composing  abolition  and  anti-slavery 
societies."  The  most  prominent  signatures  to  the  call 
were  James  F.  Conover,  editor  of  the  "  Whig " ;  Charles 
R.  Ramsey,  editor  of  the  "Republican";  and  W.  R. 


212  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Thomas,  editor  of  the  "  Post,"  a  Democratic  organ ;  William 
Burke,  city  postmaster ;  Robert  T.  Lytle,  ex-member  of 
Congress  and  Surveyor  of  the  Land  Office ;  John  C. 
Wright,  ex-member  of  Congress  ;  Richard  Fosdick,  candi 
date  for  sheriff;  Elam  P.  Langdon,  Whig  expectant  of 
the  post-office ;  Morgan  Neville,  Receiver  of  the  Land 
Office;  E.  Hulse,  candidate  for  sheriff;  J.  S.  Benham, 
standing  candidate  for  Congress — all  office-holders  or  candi 
dates  for  office,  and  a  few  merchants  and  property  owners. 
The  men  who  did  not  sign,  but  who  were  busy  in  making 
arrangements  for  the  mob  were  N.  C.  Read,  prosecuting 
attorney  and  Democratic  aspirant  to  judicial  office,  and 
Timothy  Walker,  Whig  aspirant  to  judicial  or  congres 
sional  honors. 

During  the  day  runners  were  sent  through  the  foun 
dries,  machine-shops,  and  manufactories  to  secure  the 
attendance  of  working  men  at  the  meeting.  The  towns 
of  Newport  and  Covington,  on  the  Kentucky  side  of  the 
river,  were  beaten  up  for  recruits.  The  principal  managers 
met  at  the  office  of  an  ex- Representative  in  Congress  and 
prepared  resolutions  to  be  passed  by  the  assembly  at  the 
court-house.  One  of  them  was  as  follows :  "  That  this 
meeting  will  exert  every  lawful  effort  to  suppress  the  publi 
cation  of  any  abolition  paper  in  this  city  or  neighborhood." 
It  was  given  out  that  the  meeting  would  be  addressed  by 
a  Whig  and  two  Democrats — John  C.  Wright,  N.  Gr.  Pendle- 
ton,  and  that  fiery  declaimer  Gen.  Robert  T.  Lytle ;  and 
understood  that,  after  its  adjournment,  the  mob  should 
visit  the  anti-slavery  printing-office,  the  book  store  where 
anti-slavery  pamphlets  were  sold,  and  the  house  of  Mr. 
Birney.  The  colored  people  feared  that  an  attack  would 
be  made  upon  their  dwellings ;  some  of  them  left  the  city 
with  their  wives  and  children,  others  concealed  themselves, 
and  a  few  barricaded  the  doors  and  windows  of  their 
houses.  One  or  two  of  the  abolitionists,  more  obnoxious 


THE   CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,   1836.      213 

than  the  rest  because  of  their  English  birth,  betook  them 
selves  to  the  country ;  many  of  the  others  circulated  among 
the  leaders  and  runners  of  the  mob  and  learned  their  pro 
gramme  for  the  violence  of  the  evening.  The  mayor, 
city  marshal,  and  sheriff,  being  fully  informed  as  to  the 
facts,  refused  to  take  any  precautions  whatever.  A  night 
of  horrors  was  anticipated. 

In  the  afternoon  Mr.  Birney  wrote  to  the  correspond 
ing  secretary  of  the  Rhode  Island  Anti-Slavery  Society : 

...  An  anti-abolition  meeting  is  to  be  held  this  evening,  called 
by  ''gentlemen  of  property  and  standing."  The  hand  of  the 
South  has  almost  benumbed  the  spirit  of  freedom.  ...  I  can  not 
print  my  paper  here.  I  lectured  here  one  evening  (January  5th) 
to  a  small  audience  in  a  private  manner,  no  notice  having  been 
given  of  it  in  the  papers.  This  is  the  exciting  cause  of  the  meet 
ing  this  evening.  It  was  but  yesterday  that  a  wealthy  slave 
holder  of  Kentucky  called  to  let  me  know  that  my  press  in  Ohio 
would  be  destroyed  by  a  band  of  his  fellow-citizens,  who  had 
determined  upon  it,  that  almost  the  whole  county  would  be 
summoned  to  the  service,  and  that  my  life  was  in  continual  dan 
ger.  A  few  days  before  a  citizen  of  Cincinnati,  a  high  commis 
sioned  officer  of  the  militia,  called  to  inform  me  that  I  would  be 
disgracefully  punished  and  abused  and  my  property  destroyed  if 
I  persisted  in  my  anti-slavery  movements.  ...  I  pray  you  press 
on.  It  is  not  a  time  to  be  indolent.  If  we  are  our  children  may 
wear  the  livery  of  the  slave.  H  I  fall  in  this  cause  I  trust  it  will 
bring  hundreds  to  supply  my  place.  (See  appendix  to  ' '  Proceed 
ings  of  Rhode  Island  Convention.") 

About  6  o'clock  p.  if.,  a  meeting  of  the  men  employed 
to  do  the  active  work  of  the  mob  was  held  in  a  store  in 
Front  Street.  It  was  a  rough  crowd,  composed  of  wharf 
laborers,  workers  in  the  Fulton  foundries  and  machine- 
shops,  and  men  from  the  towns  on  the  Kentucky  side  of 
the  river.  They  were  divided  into  squads,  each  under  a 
leader,  whose  orders  were  to  be  obeyed.  The  proceedings 
of  this  meeting  were  promptly  reported  to  my  father  by  a 


214:  JAMES  GK  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

friend  who  came  with  a  carriage  to  take  him  to  a  house 
in  the  country.  His  offer  was  gratefully  declined.  Other 
friends  called  to  offer  the  shelter  of  their  houses  to  him 
and  his  family.  He  thanked  them  cordially,  but  would 
not  detain  them.  He  took  tea  as  usual,  talking  pleasant 
ly  with  me  and  my  mother,  but  making  no  allusion  to  the 
probable  events  of  the  evening.  I  knew  the  danger,  ant 
was  suffering  under  painful  apprehensions.  After  tea  J 
followed  him  to  his  study,  intending  to  beg  him  to  go  into 
the  country.  He  anticipated  me  by  saying,  "  My  son.  I  am 
going  to  the  meeting."  His  tone  forbade  me  to  utter  my 
request.  Waiting  for  him  at  the  front  door  while  he  bade 
my  mother  good-evening,  I  passed  out  with  him  and 
walked  by  his  side  to  the  court-house.  An  immense! 
crowd  of  people  was  already  there.  The  approaches  were 
thronged ;  men  stood  on  the  window  -  sills  and  looked 
through  and  talked  in  groups  in  the  yard.  Inside  every 
place  was  filled,  from  the  judge's  bench  to  the  gallery. 
We  made  our  way  with  difficulty  to  the  foot  of  the  steps 
leading  to  the  bench.  The  recreant  Mayor  Davies  was  in 
the  chair;  four  politicians,  two  Whigs  and  two  Demo 
crats,  including  Postmaster  Burke,  were  acting  as  vice- 
presidents,  and,  as  we  were  getting  through  the  crowd,  a 
committee  of  fifteen,  Surveyor-General  Lytle,  chairman, 
was  appointed  to  report  resolutions.  During  its  supposed 
absence  the  floor  was  given,  evidently  by  prearrangement, 
to  Colonel  Hale  of  the  militia,  a  livery  stable-keeper  and 
ward  politician.  This  man  was  an  illiterate  but  fluent 
and  passionate  declaimer,  full  of  bitter  prejudices  and 
proud  of  his  selection  as  the  orator  who  was  to  stir  the 
people  to  acts  of  violence.  He  made  a  most  inflammatory 
harangue  against  Mr.  Birney,  charging  him  with  amalga 
mation,  incendiarism,  and  treason  to  the  Constitution  of 
his  country.  To  prove  the  last  charge,  he  flourished  be 
fore  his  audience  what  he  called  a  copy  of  the  Boston 


THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,   1836.      215 

"  Liberator,"  and  read,  or  pretended  to  read,  from  it  one 
or  two  passages  denouncing  the  national  Constitution  and 
advocating  disunion.*  In  the  name  of  all  that  is  sacred 
in  love  of  country,  he  called  upon  his  hearers  to  prevent 
the  "miscreant  Birney"  from  making  Cincinnati  the 
place  of  his  intrigues  to  overthrow  the  Constitution  and 
plunge  the  South  into  the  blood-reeking  massacres  of  a 
servile  insurrection.  The  roughs  cheered  him  wildly,  and, 
at  the  close  of  his  peroration,  were  ready  to  rush  to  the 
work  of  destruction. 

As  the  vociferous  applause  subsided,  my  father  spoke 
in  a  distinct  and  clear  voice :  "  Mr.  President,  my  name 
is  Birney.  May  I  be  heard  ?  "  The  crowd  was  silent  as 
he  added,  "My  personal  character  and  my  cause  have 
been  unjustly  attacked.  May  I  defend  them?"  The 
president's  answer  was  lost  in  the  wild  clamor  and  tumult 
that  followed.  Cries  of  "  Kill  him,"  "  Down  with  him," 
"  Drag  him  out,"  "  Tar  and  feather  him,"  drowned  those 
of  "  Hear  him."  A  few,  among  them  the  zealous  livery 
stableman,  tried  to  force  their  way  toward  him ;  but  those 
near  him  resisted  them,  calling  out  "  Fair  play."  In  the 
height  of  this  tumult,  Survey  or- General  Lytle,  a  man  of 
generous  and  chivalrous  temperament,  sprang  to  the 
judge's  bench  and  by  gesture  demanded  silence.  As  he 
was  the  recognized  chief  of  the  anti-abolition  movement, 
quiet  was  restored.  "  My  friends,"  said  he,  "  hear  before 

*  For  many  years  I  thought  the  colonel  must  have  read  passages  that 
were  spurious,  but  on  pages  307  and  309  of  Garrison's  "  Life,"  by  his 
sons,  I  find  extracts  from  the  "Liberator"  of  1832  which  sound  like 
those  read  by  the  fiery  speaker  to  goad  the  mob  to  take  vengeance  on 
Mr.  Birney.  In  these  Mr.  Garrison  concedes  the  unfounded  claim  of  the 
slave-holders  that  there  is  a  "compact"  in  the  Constitution  to  continue 
and  protect  slavery,  and  calls  it  "a  most  bloody  and  heaven-daring  ar 
rangement,  ...  a  high-handed  villainy,"  etc.  He  says,  too,  "  So  long  as 
we  continue  one  body,  a  union,  a  nation,  the  compact  involves  us  in  the 
guilt  and  danger  of  slavery." 


216  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

}7ou  strike.  Don't  disgrace  our  city  and  our  cause  before 
the  nation.  I  oppose  abolitionism,  but  I  honor  a  brave 
man,  and  Mr.  Birney  has  to-night  shown  himself  the  brav 
est  man  I  have  ever  seen."  Then,  addressing  my  father 
politely,  he  asked  him  to  defer  his  remarks  until  the  reso 
lutions  should  be  read,  and  pledged  the  audience  to  hear 
him.  After  the  report  of  the  committee  was  read  and 
Judge  Wright  had  spoken  a  few  minutes,  General  Lytle 
moved  that  Mr.  Birney  be  invited  to  defend  abolition. 
The  motion  was  carried  by  a  large  majority. 

For  three  quarters  of  an  hour  Mr.  Birney  held  the  at 
tention  of  the  audience.  The  turbulent  interruptions  of 
a  few  were  hushed.  Point  after  point  was  made  with 
telling  effect.  Pathos,  wit,  argument,  and  eloquent  ap 
peals  followed  each  other  in  rapid  succession.  To  the 
charge  of  amalgamation  brought  against  him  by  Colonel 
Hale,  he  answered  by  giving  a  statement  of  the  fact  on 
which  it  was  based.  He  had  found,  he  said,  Colonel  Hale, 
a  venerable  person  with  flowing  white  hair,  at  the  door  of 
his  house  with  a  colored  man.  Both  were  strangers  to 
him,  and,  supposing  they  came  together,  he  had  invited 
them  to  enter.  The  man  applied  for  employment  and 
was  dismissed.  He  left  it  to  the  gallant  colonel  to  ex 
plain  why  he  came  with  such  a  companion.  The  tables 
were  turned  on  the  colonel,  and  the  crowd  laughed  at  his 
discomfiture  and  would  not  hear  his  explanation.  To  the 
charge  of  hostility  to  the  national  Constitution,  he  an 
swered  by  a  noble  vindication  of  that  instrument.  He 
denied  that  it  contained  any  compact  with  slavery  or  any 
guarantee  or  even  any  mention  of  it ;  claimed  that  the 
nearest  approach  to  a  recognition  of  it  was  the  stigma 
placed  upon  it  in  the  denial  of  congressional  representa 
tion  to  two  fifths  of  a  certain  class  of  population,  and  that 
the  South  would  gain  and  not  lose  in  the  number  of  its 
members  of  Congress  by  emancipation;  and  in  a  magnificent 


THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,   1836.      217 

appeal  he  developed  the  grand  object  of  the  Constitution 
to  "  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our 
posterity."  He  was  proceeding  to  arraign  General  Jack 
son,  Amos  Kendall,  Van  Buren,  and  Calhoun  for  their 
attempts  upon  the  liberties  of  citizens,  when  the  mayor 
interrupted  him  to  say  that  the  invitation  given  him  ex 
tended  to  a  personal  explanation  only.  Mr.  Birney  ap 
pealed  to  the  audience,  and  on  vote  was  sustained  ;  but 
the  presiding  officer's  example  was  followed  by  the  unruly, 
and  the  uproar  made  by  the  minority  was  so  great  that 
the  speaker  expressed  his  thanks  for  having  been  permit 
ted  to  address  the  meeting  and  stepped  from  the  stand. 

His  triumph,  however,  was  complete.  The  subsequent 
efforts  of  orators  to  excite  the  crowd  were  fruitless.  The 
meeting  passed  the  resolutions  and  adjourned  sine  die. 
As  my  father  left  the  court-room,  which  he  did  a  few 
minutes  before  the  adjournment,  the  crowd  made  way 
respectfully  for  him,  and  he  was  neither  followed  nor  mo 
lested  on  his  way  home.  After  locking  the  front  door 
behind  us,  we  inspected  each  one  of  about  forty  muskets 
and  double-barreled  shot-guns  that  were  kept  on  the  front 
staircase  landing  and  in  other  parts  of  the  house,  getting 
them  ready  for  use,  for,  said  he,  "  Though  nearly  all  of 
that  crowd  will  go  home  quietly,  the  little  band  led  by 
Hale  means  mischief  and  may  be  down  on  us  to-night." 
Then,  leaving  me  at  a  front  window  up-stairs  on  the  look 
out,  he  went  into  my  mother's  room  and  sat  chatting  with 
and  reassuring  her.  He  was  not  a  non-resistant.  There 
was  never  a  time  when  he  would  have  refused  or  neglected 
to  defend  his  wife  and  children. 

The  night  passed  quietly.  The  city  papers  of  next 
morning  had  lost  somewhat  of  their  truculent  tone.  The 
"Whig  "said: 

The  incidents  of  the  meeting  were  exceedingly  interesting  and 
somewhat  peculiar.     The   celebrated   and   fanatical  abolitionist 
11 


218  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AXD  HIS  TIMES. 

James  G.  Birney  had  the  boldness  and  fatuity  to  attend.  Some 
observations  were  made  by  Colonel  Hale  of  a  severe  character 
touching  Mr.  Birney's  abolition  proceedings  and  which  were  cal 
culated  to  produce  a  very  unfavorable  impression  toward  hhr 
and  to  render  him  and  his  course  still  more  odious.  Mr.  Birne} 
rose  to  reply.  Inflammable  symptoms  of  hostility  toward  hiir. 
were  instantly  manifest,  and  a  good  deal  of  confusion  ensued 
Some  were  for  turning  him  out,  some  for  compelling  his  silence 
and  others  for  hearing  what  he  had  to  say.  A  vote  was  then 
taken  whether  he  should  be  permitted  to  speak,  and  was  decided 
in  the  affirmative  by  a  large  majority. 

The  "  Gazette  "  gave  a  short  report  as  follows : 

A  good-looking  man,  past  the  meridian  of  life,  with  hair 
somewhat  gray,  here  rose  and  said:  "My  name  is  Birney;  May  I 
be  heard  ? "  The  audience  appeared  confounded  by  such  a  re 
quest  coming  from  such  a  source.  Recovering  from  their  sur 
prise  at  the  calm  fearlessness  of  the  man  who  dared  stand  un 
armed  in  the  midst  of  his  enemies,  one  cried  out  "Down  with 
him!  "  others  cried,  "Kill  him!  "  others  cried,  "  Tar  and  feather 
him,'1  For  a  time  there  was  confusion  worse  confounded.  Mr. 
Birney,  with  entire  self-possession,  remarked  that  he  would  not 
proceed  if  he  could  not  have  the  ear  of  the  assembly.  To  go  on 
under  such  circumstances  would  justify  the  charge  of  obstinacy 
that  had  been  laid  at  the  door  of  abolitionists. 

At  this  stage,  Gen.  Lytle,  who  had  great  influence  with  the 
mob,  rose  and,  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  cried : 

"Hear  before  you  strike."  The  meeting  then  resolved  to 
hear. 

Mr.  Birney,  thanking  them  for  the  unexpected  favor,  said 
that  his  sentiments  had  been  misunderstood.  It  was  no  part  of 
the  design  of  the  abolitionists  to  interfere  with  the  Constitution 
of  the  country.  .  .  .  Emancipation  was  a  work  that  could  lie 
carried  on  and  consummated  without  touching  the  Constitu 
tion.  .  .  . 

He  was  not  indifferent  to  the  safety  of  his  fellow-citizens  of 
the  South.  He  was  from  the  South.  He  was  born  in  the  South. 
He  had  spent  his  life  there.  He  had  numerous  beloved  kindn  d 
who  held  slaves.  To  their  safety  he  was  not  indifferent,  and  he 


THE  CINCINNATI  MOB  OF  JANUARY,  1836.      219 

certainly  should  pursue  no  course  which  he  thought  likely  to  put 
them  in  peril.  He  considered  that  the  ultimate  safety  of  the 
South  was  more  in  danger  from  perpetual  slavery  than  from  its 
abolition.  See  how  the  blacks  increase  upon  the  whites !  This 
disproportionate  increase  of  blacks  will  finally  bring  the  very 
catastrophe  which  is  now  dreaded.  It  may  be  slow,  but  it  will 
come  if  slavery  is  perpetuated.  He  desired  to  save  his  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  South  and  his  country  from  the  horrors  of  that 
day.  He  had  reason  to  believe  that  such  appeals  to  his  fellow- 
citizens  on  this  subject  would  not  be  in  vain. 

When  Mr.  Birney  concluded,  he  mingled  among  the  crowd, 
and  retired  upon  adjournment  without  further  molestation.  His 
conduct  had  disarmed  the  madness  of  the  multitude. 

For  several  months  following  the  "  Great  Mob  Meet 
ing  "  held  at  the  court-house,  January  22,  1836,  all  was 
quiet  at  Cincinnati. 

None  of  the  dailies  suggested  again  a  resort  to  violence. 
It  was  quite  evident  that  the  threatened  storm  had  blown 
over  for  a  time.  After  this  date  anti-slavery  publications 
were  openly  sold  in  Cincinnati ;  the  City  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety  held  frequent  meetings  ;  Mr.  Birney  lectured  in  the 
city  and  its  suburbs ;  his  well-known  figure  still  attracted 
attention  in  his  daily  walks  in  the  streets,  but  respect  and 
curiosity  were  more  marked  than  ill-will.  To  outward 
seeming,  the  enslavement  of  the  press  in  the  Queen  City 
of  the  West  had  been  defeated.  But  the  snake  was  only 
scotched,  not  killed ;  it  was  to  regain  its  venom  and  vigor 
in  the  heats  of  the  following  July.  Then  the  excitement 
of  the  presidential  campaign  would  be  at  its  height  and 
the  city  hotels  and  boarding  houses  would  be  full  of  so 
journing  slave-holders. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 


THE  EDITOR. 

THE  "  Philanthropist "  was  named  after  an  anti-slav 
ery  religious  paper  which  had  been  published  in  1817-'! 8 
at  Mount  Pleasant,  Ohio,  by  Charles  Osborn,  a  preaching 
member  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  It  was  a  folio  weekly, 
and  was  well  printed  on  good  paper.  At  the  date  of  its 
first  issue,  the  whole  number  in  the  United  States  of  peri 
odical  publications  of  all  kinds,  from  dailies  to  quarterlies, 
was  in  round  numbers  twelve  hundred,  and  of  these  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty,  most  of  them  local  county  pa 
pers,  were  published  in  the  States  formed  out  of  the 
Northwestern  Territory.  Cincinnati  was  the  newspaper 
center  for  the  West,  issuing  three  dailies  and  about  twelve 
weeklies,  several  of  which  were  of  a  religious  character. 
The  era  of  steam-power  printing  had  not  then  begun  ;  all 
press-work  was  done  by  striking  off  one  impression  at  n 
time  on  a  press  worked  by  hand.  Subscription-lists  were; 
necessarily  small.  The  average  circulation  of  the  eleven 
six-cent  dailies  then  published  in  Xew  York  city  was  sev 
enteen  hundred  each,  their  profits  coming  from  advertis 
ing  patronage.  Telegraphic  news  was  not  known. 

The  standing  of  the  press  was  not  high.  De  Tocque- 
ville,  writing  in  1835,  says  : 

The  journalists  of  the  United  States  are  usually  placed  in  a 
very  humble  position  with  a  scanty  education  and  a  vulgar  turn 
of  mind.  .  .  .  The  characteristics  of  the  American  journalist 


THE  EDITOR.  221 

consist  in  an  open  and  coarse  appeal  to  the  passions  of  the  popu 
lace,  and  he  habitually  abandons  the  principles  of  political  sci 
ence  to  assail  the  characters  of  individuals,  to  track  them  into 
private  life  and  disclose  all  their  weaknesses  and  errors.  .  .  .  The 
personal  opinions  of  the  editors  have  no  kind  of  weight  in  the 
eyes  of  the  public. 

To  this  there  were  numerous  exceptions,  not  numerous 
enough,  however,  to  diminish  the  public  expectation  that 
the  new  paper  would  take  high  rank.  Admiration  of 
James  G.  Birney  was  not  confined  to  the  friends  of  his 
cause.  The  incidents  at  the  mob  meeting  in  January  had 
brought  into  general  notice  his  personal  courage  and  his 
qualities  as  a  leader.  People  began  to  believe  that  he 
would  continue  to  publish  his  paper  notwithstanding  the< 
opposition.  The  friends  of  a  free  press  regarded  him  as 
their  representative,  and  so  did  the  anti-slavery  men.  The 
subscription-list,  small  in  January,  grew  rapidly  in  Febru 
ary,  and  in  three  months  numbered  more  than  seventeen 
hundred.  There  were  a  few  from  the  South;  the  rest 
were  from  all  the  free  States,  but  chiefly  from  Ohio. 
Many  distinguished  men  were  on  it.  Among  them  were 
William  Ellery  Channing  and  Charles  Sunnier,  Thaddeus 
Stevens  and  Governor  Ritner,  Joshua  Giddings  and  Sal 
mon  P.  Chase.  A  few  wealthy  men  of  public  spirit  made 
up  a  fund  to  pay  the  cost  of  sending  three  hundred  copies 
of  each  number  to  as  many  influential  men  in  State  and 
Church  for  their  information.  Some  of  these  were  sent 
regularly  to  the  same  persons,  but  the  greater  number 
were  sent  to  different  addresses  from  week  to  week.  High 
officials  of  the  National  Government,  congressmen,  gov 
ernors  of  States,  prominent  members  of  legislatures,  bish 
ops,  and  eminent  divines,  were  recipients  of  papers  paid 
for  out  of  this  fund.  The  intention  was  to  reach  all  the 
men  who  shaped  public  opinion  and  awaken  them  to  the 
imminent  danger  of  the  subjugation  of  the  National  Gov- 


222  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

eminent  by  the  slave  power.  To  this  work  Mr.  Birney 
devoted  himself  with  characteristic  energy. 

As  neither  the  limits  of  this  biography  nor  the  interest 
of  the  narrative  permit  a  detailed  account  of  his  editorial 
labors,  their  nature  will  be  best  suggested  by  a  statement 
of  the  political  situation  in  regard  to  slavery  at  the  open 
ing  of  the  year  183G. 

The  unfavorable  features  of  it  were  as  follows : 

1.  The  slave  power  was  in  possession  of  the  patronage 
and  power  of  the  National  Government. 

On  his  accession  in  1829,  President  Jackson  had 
promptly  removed  from  office  every  official  known  to  hold 
anti-slavery  views,  and  he  had  appointed  none  whose 
fealty  to  slavery  was  questionable.  If  a  Northern  poli 
tician  was  known  to  have  become  unpopular  because  he  had 
voted  to  increase  slave  territory  he  was  rewarded.  Bald 
win,  of  Pennsylvania,  had  voted  to  admit  Missouri.  His 
constituents  burned  him  in  effigy  and  sent  him  into  pri 
vate  life.  Jackson  placed  him  in  the  United  States  Su 
preme  Court.  In  1819  Roger  B.  Taney,  in  a  speech  in 
Gruber's  case,  had  said  of  slavery,  "  -While  it  continues  it 
is  a  blot  on  our  national  character."  In  1824  he  turned 
a  somersault  into  the  Democratic  party  and  became  the 
zealous  advocate  of  the  political  schemes  of  the  slave 
power.  In  1831  Jackson  made  him  Attorney-General  of 
the  United  States,  and  in  December,  1835,  nominated  him 
as  Chief  Justice.  That  nomination  was  pending  until 
the  following  March.  Its  confirmation  gave  to  the  slavo 
power  the  majority  in  the  highest  tribunal  of  the  nation. 
A  not  unimportant  part  of  the  policy  of  the  Jackson  Ad 
ministration  was  the  corruption  of  the  press  by  appoint 
ments  of  editors  to  office.  More  than  sixty  of  this  class 
were  thus  favored.  The  selections  were  made  among 
those  who  had  been  most  active  in  propagating  the  pro- 
slavery  dogmas  that  the  Constitution  guaranteed  the  ex- 


THE  EDITOR.  223 

istence  of  slavery  and  authorized  all  legal  measures  neces 
sary  to  its  perpetuation.  It  was  well  understood  that  any 
editor  or  publisher  who  favored  free  discussion  would  not 
be  favored  by  the  Administration. 

Means  were  found  to  give  preference  to  friends  of  the 
South  in  awarding  Government  contracts  for  labor  or 
supplies,  and,  as  the  Seminole  War  was  being  actively 
pushed,  opportunities  to  do  this  were  not  wanting.  This 
substitution  of  sectional  politics  for  business  principles 
had  its  natural  result  in  the  numerous  defalcations  under 
Van  Buren's  administration. 

The  military  and  naval  academies  were  placed  under 
pro-slavery  administrators,  and  with  such  effect  that  an 
anti-slavery  officer  in  either  army  or  navy  was  unknown. 
The  constitutional  doctrines  taught  in  them  were  pro- 
slavery  and  loyalty  to  State  Governments. 

Many  of  the  most  active  and  enterprising  young  men 
in  the  Northern  States  were  led  by  money  and  promises 
to  engage  in  forming  bands  of  recruits  for  the  insurgent 
forces  in  Texas. 

In  short,  the  whole  influence  of  the  National  Admin 
istration  was  thrown  aggressively  on  the  side  of  the  exten 
sion  and  nationalization  of  slavery. 

2.  The  two  political  parties  were  bound  hand  and  foot 
to  the  slave  power. 

In  profession  the  Democratic  party  was  the  friend  of 
the  laboring  classes,  the  advocate  of  the  equality  of  rights 
of  all  men  before  the  law,  and  the  opponent  of  sectional 
ism  and  centralization  in  politics.  In  practice  it  held  that 
two  millions  and  a  half  of  the  laboring  classes  had  no 
right  to  wages,  or  any  rights  whatever,  sustained  the  only 
purely  sectional  party  ever  known  in  the  United  States, 
and  was  always  eager  to  overthrow  the  rights  of  the  States 
and  vest  the  National  G  overnment  with  the  power  to  legis 
late  on  the  personal  relations  of  inhabitants  of  States  to 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

each  other  and  to  authorize  the  seizure  and  transportation 
for  trial  to  a  distant  State  of  a  man  charged  with  owing 
service  to  another.  The  Democratic  party  was  thus  a  com 
plex  solecism  of  national  extent.  Its  leaders  were  Jackson, 
Caihoun,  Taney,  and  Van  Buren ;  and  it  relied  for  success 
upon  the  slave  power  at  the  South  and  the  Irish  Catholics, 
free  traders,  and  rabble  at  the  North. 

The  Whig  party  represented  the  banking,  manufactur 
ing,  and  moneyed  interests  of  the  country.  It  was  the 
political  expression  of  the  era  of  business  enterprise  and 
material  prosperity  which  opened  soon  after  the  close  of 
the  War  of  1812-'15.  Unacceptable,  because  of  its  pro 
tective  tariff  views,  to  the  cotton  planters,  it  sought  to 
conciliate  them  through  its  leaders.  Henry  Clay  had  been 
in  1819  a  zealous  advocate  of  Texas  annexation,  had,  by 
his  casting  vote  as  Speaker,  fastened  slavery  on  the  Terri 
tory  of  Arkansas,  and,  by  his  zeal  and  tact,  effected  the 
admission  of  Missouri  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State 
against  the  public  sentiment  of  the  North.  Gen.  Harri 
son,  the  candidate  of  the  party  for  the  presidency,  was  a 
native  Virginian,  and  had  distinguished  himself  as  Gov 
ernor  in  the  Northwestern  Territory  by  favoring  efforts 
to  legalize  slavery  in  Indiana.  The  choice  of  the  Whig 
party  fell  on  him  because  of  his  pro-slavery  record,  no  less 
than  because  of  the  simplicity  and  integrity  of  his  private 
life  and  popularity  as  a  military  hero. 

The  common  desire  of  both  parties  not  to  antagonize 
the  slave  power  caused  them  to  vie  with  each  other  in 
eager  and  unlimited  indorsement  of  its  most  indefensible 
views  of  the  national  Constitution. 

These  views,  though  unsupported  by  history  or  the 
text  of  the  Constitution,  had  spread  from  the  politicians 
to  the  lawyers,  and,  in  a  few  instances,  had  extended  their 
poison  to  the  courts.  The  American  people  are  essentially 
law-abiding,  and  the  corrupting  influence  of  the  false 


THE  EDITOR.  225 

constitutional  doctrines  constantly  inculcated  upon  them 
by  men  high  in  power,  by  political  speakers,  and  a  partisan 
press  can  hardly  be  estimated  at  this  day.  In  1836  it  was 
no  uncommon  belief,  even  among  the  intelligent,  that 
resistance  to  the  demands  of  the  slave  power  was  unlawful 
and  akin  to  treason. 

3.  Many  church  organizations  embraced  both  free  and 
slave  territory  and  most  of  the  good  men  in  their  member 
ship  honestly  believed  it  of  vast  importance  to  preserve 
them  unbroken.     All  the  conservative  influences  in  the 
national  religious  bodies  were  arrayed  against  a  discussion 
which  was  likely  to  result  in  schism.     This  was  true  also 
of  the  large  secret  orders. 

4.  The  commercial   and  manufacturing   classes  were 
generally  hostile  to  agitation.    The  enormous  development 
within  the  ten  preceding  years  of  steamboat  and  railroad 
transportation  had  greatly  extended  internal  commerce; 
and  the  control  of  this  was  rapidly  falling  into  the  hands 
of  the  merchants  in  a  few  cities.     With  peace  and  quiet, 
large  fortunes  were  in  their  grasp.     They  wished  to  be  let 
alone. 

5.  The  prejudice  among  the  Northern  people  against 
negroes  indisposed  them  to  resist  the  slave  power.     It  was 
partly  racial  and  partly  due  to  the  ignorance  and  utter 
destitution  of  fugitives  from  slavery.     They  were  black, 
fugitive,  and  beggared.    To  betray  them  was  dishonorable ; 
to  feed,  shelter  for  a  night,  and  speed  them  on  their  way 
to  Canada  was  a  Christian  duty ;  but  to  give  them  employ 
ment  and  homes  was  regarded  as  the  act  of  a  bad  citizen. 
In  all,  or  nearly  all  the  free  States  there  were  laws  in 
tended  to  prevent  the  settlement  of  blacks  within  their 
boundaries. 

These  laws  were  disgraceful  in  their  inhumanity.  The 
pro-slavery  advocates  maintained  that  if  emancipation 
should  take  place  at  the  South  the  negroes  would  migrate 


226  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

en  masse  to  the  North ;  and  this  absurdity  obtained  gen 
eral  credence  among  the  unthinking  and  prejudiced  them 
against  the  abolitionists. 

6.  The  prevalent  aversion  among  moral  and  religious 
people  to  take  part  in  political  action  greatly  increased 
the  difficulty  of  organizing  resistance  to  the  slave  power. 
This  was  the  natural  result  of  the  almost  purely  material 
character  of  public  questions  after  the  war,  the  general 
absence  of  ethical  elements  in  them,  the  coarseness  and 
scurrility  of  the  partisan  press,  the  widely  known  personal 
vices  of  men  prominent  in  public  affairs,  the  trickiness  in 
the  presentation  of  party  issues,  and  the  shameless  incon 
gruity  between  party  professions  and  practice.     A  consci 
entious  man  was  out  of  place  in  a  caucus  or  primary  meeting. 
The  number  of  good  men  who  would  not  go  to  the  polls 
was  increasing.    Several  small  religious  sects  forbade  their 
members  to  vote.     Politics,  in  the  language  of  the  non- 
voting  class,  was  "  a  dirty  mire  " ;  and,  by  a  perverse  logic, 
the  country  was  to  be  saved  by  permitting  all  its  political 
machinery  to  be  controlled  by  bad  men.     The  non-voters 
in  politics  were  generally  "  Gome-outers  "  in  religion,  and 
for  all  purposes  of  progress,  were  useless  both  in  State  and 
Church.     Most  of  them  were  anti- slavery  in  profession, 
because  of  their  habit  of  unstinted  censure  of  things  ex 
isting  ;  they  attended  abolition  meetings,  but  were  chiefly 
earnest  in  trying  to  prevent  anti-slavery  men  from  voting. 
They  were  as  noted  for  the  violence  of  their  tirades  against 
slavery  as  for  their  stubborn  refusal  to  go  to  the  polls. 
This  class,  imprudent  of  speech  and  useless  in  action,  was 
a  hindrance  to  the  abolition  cause.     They  pretended  to  be 
soldiers,  but  refused  to  bear  arms. 

7.  The   incongruous   and   widely   divergent   opinions 
among  anti-slavery  men  were  an  element  of  weakness  in 
their  cause.     They  had  no  coherent  body  of  doctrine  ;  no 
accepted  plan  of  action.     In  regard  to  the  national  Con- 


THE   EDITOR.  227 

stitution,  opinions  ranged  from  conservative  to  revolu 
tionary  ;  and  discussion  had  not  yet  been  general  enough 
to  separate  anti-slavery  men  into  the  distinct  classes  which 
were  evolved  at  a  later  period.  In  1836,  constitutionalists, 
consolidationists,  and  disunionists,  met  on  the  same  plat 
form.  Those  who  believed  that  freedom  was  national  but 
that  the  rights  of  States  to  self-government  was  guaran 
teed  ;  those  who  believed  that  Congress  could  and  should, 
without  delay,  abolish  slavery  in  the  States ;  and  those 
who  accepted  the  creed  of  the  slave  power  that  the 
Constitution  guaranteed  the  perpetuity  of  slavery  had  not 
yet  crystallized  into  antagonistic  groups.  The  sensational 
declamations  of  zealots  of  the  two  classes  last  named 
were  of  a  nature  to  array  patriotic  feeling  against  aboli 
tionists  generally  and  were  freely  used  for  this  purpose 
by  pro-slavery  speakers  and  editors. 

8.  In  July,  1836,  there  were  twenty-four  States,  and 
the  only  ones  in  which  slavery  did  not  exist  practically 
were  Maine,  Massachusetts,  Michigan,  and  Vermont.  The 
census  of  1840  reports  slaves  in  all  the  rest,  not  excepting 
the  States  formed  out  of  the  Xorthwestern  Territory.  This 
practical  survival  reminded  the  people  of  the  free  States 
that  they  had  abolished  the  institution  without  interfer 
ence  and  gave  point  to  the  argument  that  the  people  of 
the  slave  States  would  soon  follow  their  example,  if  not 
exasperated  by  intermeddlers.  This  had  weight  with  the 
timid,  the  easy-going,  and  those  uninformed  of  the  politi 
cal  encroachments  of  the  slave  power. 

Against  the  formidable  influences  tending  to  promote 
the  designs  of  the  slave  power  to  gain  permanent  ascend 
ency  in  the  Union  there  were  working  powerful  ones 
making  for  freedom.  The  tendency  of  all  modern  civ 
ilization  to  the  recognition  of  human  rights  and  the  eman 
cipation  of  the  individual  in  both  Church  and  state  had 
been  marked  in  the  decay  of  serfdom  and  feudalism ;  in 


228  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

the  outburst  and  growth  of  Protestantism ;  the  decadence 
of  absolute  monarchies ;  the  French  revolution  ;  the  legis 
lation  against  the  African  slave  trade  ;  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  French  West  Indies,  the  Cape  Colony,  Mex 
ico,  and  all  large  civilized  countries  except  Brazil  and  the 
Southern  States  of  the  Union.  Equality  of  civil  rights 
and  the  blessings  of  liberty  had  been  recognized  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  the  national  Constitution, 
and  the  Constitution  of  each  State.  Every  legal  tribunal 
administered  the  law  on  the  basis  of  the  equal  rights  of 
individuals.  Every  church  preached  justice  and  human 
brotherhood.  Every  orator  lauded  the  United  States  as 
the  home  of  the  free  and  refuge  of  the  oppressed  of  all 
nations.  Twelve  States  had  broken  the  shackles  of  slavery 
by  law.  The  institutions,  traditions,  and  instincts  of  the 
people  of  this  country  were  inconsistent  with  anything 
that  antagonized  freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press,  of  or 
ganization,  of  locomotion,  and  of  industry.  Even  in  the 
far  South,  slavery  had  not  been  formally  established  by 
statute  in  any  State.  It  was  a  tolerated  anomaly,  an  in 
congruity,  which  had  grown  up,  since  1793,  under  the 
invention  of  the  cotton-gin  and  the  vast  development  of 
cotton  culture,  into  a  gigantic  moneyed  interest,  and  then 
been  transformed  into  a  political  power.  The  united  po 
litical  South  did  not  exist  before  the  Missouri  controversy 
of  1820,  after  which  its  existence  as  a  factor  in  national 
politics  was  masked  until  1835,  when  it  appeared  openly 
as  the  slave  power,  aiming  at  the  complete  subjugation  of 
the  republic.  It  was  sectional  and  aristocratic ;  conse 
quently  hostile  to  the  genius  of  American  institutions  and 
repugnant  to  Americans  generally. 

Although  merchants  and  manufacturers,  intent  on 
present  gain,  deprecated  agitation,  the  influences  of  in 
ternal  commerce  worked  quietly  but  surely  for  freedom. 
Planters  neither  farmed  nor  spun ;  they  were  not  me- 


THE  EDITOR.  229 

chanics;  they  imported  horses,  mules,  provisions,  cloth, 
whips,  shackles,  and  furniture  from  the  North.  Northern 
railroads  traversed  the  South,  and  the  steam  whistles  of 
Northern  steamboats  were  heard  on  every  Southern  stream. 
Car-hands,  boatmen,  contractors,  free  laborers,  merchants, 
drummers,  and  peddlers  from  the  North  were  seen  in 
every  Southern  village.  Yankees  set  up  shops  in  the 
Southern  towns.  Instead  of  the  isolation  of  plantation 
life  necessary  to  the  slave  system,  there  were  frequent  vis 
itors  canvassing  for  business ;  and  these  visitors  were  men 
accustomed  to  the  wages  system. 

Travel  of  Southern  men  to  the  North  had  decupled 
within  ten  years.  Merchants  went  North  to  buy  goods ; 
planters,  to  buy  provisions,  to  take  their  families  to  water 
ing  places,  and  leave  their  sons  at  college  and  their  daugh 
ters  at  boarding-schools ;  preachers  to  attend  anniver 
saries,  synods,  and  conferences ;  and  educators  to  engage 
teachers.  Interstate  marriages  were  numerous.  Commer 
cial  and  social  intercourse  with  communities  enjoying  the 
advantages  of  varied  industries  and  the  wealth  gained  in 
them  tended  to  break  up  the  provincialism  of  Southern 
life. 

The  marked  revival  of  religious  feeling  beginning  with 
1815  was  national.  This  had  given  a  strong  impulse  to 
the  formation  of  philanthropic  societies.  Among  these, 
were  the  Colonization,  Tract,  Bible,  Foreign  Mission, 
Home  Mission,  Sailors'  Friends,  and  Peace  Societies.  To 
the  same  cause  may  be  attributed  the  foundation  of  nu 
merous  asylums,  hospitals,  libraries,  and  the  large  exten 
sion  of  the  public-school  system.  All  these  organizations 
and  methods  for  the  good  of  mankind  were  the  expres 
sions  of  a  widely  prevailing  quickened  conscience  to  which 
the  friends  of  freedom  might  appeal  with  hope.  Prob 
ably  nine  tenths  of  the  abolitionists  were  church-members. 

Thus  the  battle  was  set.     On  the  one  side,  a  compact 


230  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

phalanx,  disciplined  to  obedience,  trained  in  all  the  arts 
of  political  warfare,  all-powerful  in  half  the  States,  and 
wielding  all  the  power  and  influence  of  the  National  Ad 
ministration  and  tribunals.  On  the  other,  a  people  with 
out  recognized  leaders,  without  unity  of  belief  or  plan, 
taken  by  surprise  and  sudden  onslaught,  wielding  no 
weapon  but  the  ballot,  strong  only  in  the  national  instincts 
and  traditions  of  freedom  ;  in  the  letter  of  national  and 
State  Constitutions ;  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence ; 
in  bills  of  rights ;  in  the  cosmopolitan  influences  of  travel 
and  commerce  ;  in  the  industrial  superiority  of  the  wages 
to  the  slave-labor  system ;  in  the  moral  sense  of  the  civ 
ilized  world  and  the  teachings  of  Christianity  ;  and,  more 
than  all,  in  the  complex  and  slow-moving  machinery  of 
our  political  institutions.  The  advantages  of  the  slave 
power,  in  January,  1836,  were  so  preponderating,  that  if 
government  had  been  centralized  at  Washington,  the  lib 
erties  of  the  people  would  have  been  trampled  down  and 
the  republic  transformed  into  a  slave-holding  oligarchy. 
It  was  the  great  crisis  of  American  freedom. 

Mr.  Birney  placed  his  paper  at  once  in  the  forefront 
of  the  conflict.  The  "  Philanthropist "  was  a  special 
journal ;  it  had  no  room  for  literary  or  miscellaneous  arti 
cles.  Every  line  in  it  was  devoted  to  the  vital  questions 
before  the  people  and  was  alive  with  earnestness.  Vitu 
peration  and  declamation  were  excluded.  His  methods 
were  fair.  In  exposing  the  designs  of  the  slave  power  he 
made  no  loose  charges.  He  allowed  its  representatives  to 
speak  for  it.  He  published  the  text  of  the  messages  of 
the  Governors  of  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  and  other 
Southern  States ;  of  the  speeches  of  Calhoun,  Pickens, 
Bellinger,  and  other  pro-slavery  congressmen  ;  of  the  edi 
torials  of  leading  papers  in  the  slave  States ;  and  of  the 
laws  passed  in  slave-State  Legislatures  against  freedom  of 
speech  and  of  the  press.  He  obtained,  principally  through 


THE  EDITOR.  231 

Hammond,  editor  of  the  Cincinnati  "  Gazette,"  a  large 
supply  of  Southern  newspapers,  and  copied  from  them 
accounts  of  the  brandings,  whippings,  and  hangings  of 
Northern  men  at  the  South.  He  published  the  text  of 
the  demands  made  by  Southern  governors  and  Legislatures 
upon  the  free  States  and  of  the  bill  to  muzzle  the  North 
ern  press  and  deliver  to  Southern  governors  for  trial  be 
fore  Southern  juries  every  abolition  editor  and  publisher. 
He  printed  Jackson's  message  on  the  United  States  mails, 
with  Kendall's  letters  and  Calhoun's  report  and  speech  on 
the  same  subject.  Having  laid  the  original  documents 
before  his  readers  he  analyzed  them,  exposing  the  designs 
of  the  slave  power. 

He  showed  the  spirit  of  slavery  to  be  essentially  and 
of  necessity  aggressive,  "  pushing  its  victories  and  extend 
ing  its  conquests."  In  his  first  number  he  declared, 
"  Liberty  and  slavery  can  not  both  live  long  in  juxtaposi 
tion,"  and  he  constantly  insisted  that  the  designs  of  the 
slave  power  were  such  as  not  to  admit  the  existence  of 
liberty  in  any  part  of  the  LTnion,  and  that  the  real  ques 
tion  of  the  times  was  not  the  abolition  of  negro  slavery, 
but  the  "  preservation  of  liberty  in  what  were  called  the 
free  States." 

He  exposed  the  narrowness  and  inadequacy  of  the  two 
great  political  parties,  their  avoidance  of  the  real  and 
vital  questions  in  politics,  their  subserviency  to  the  slave 
powrer,  and  their  drifting  writh  a  current  that  led  to  rocks 
and  whirlpools.  His  criticisms  of  leading  party  men  were 
as  severe  as  truth.  Of  Henry  Clay,  the  great  compro 
miser,  he  said,  "  He  has  done  more  for  slavery  and  said 
more  against  it  than  any  man  in  public  life  " ;  and  in  an 
article  of  January  8,  1836,  commenting  on  Clay's  argu 
ment  that  the  Northern  people  had  no  right  to  discuss 
slavery  because  they  had  no  right  to  decide  upon  it,  he 
wrote  :  "  Mr.  Clay  has  deliberately  enrolled  himself  among 


232  JAMES  G.  BTRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

the  opponents  of  free  discussion,  and  consequently  of  the 
liberty  of  the  press  and  of  speech."  He  examined  the 
records  of  Van  Buren,  White,  and  Harrison.  Mr.  Van 
Buren  had  voted  in  1820  for  freedom  in  Missouri,  in  1821 
for  giving  the  suffrage  to  colored  citizens  in  New  York, 
and  in  1822  to  prohibit  the  slave  trade  with  Florida ;  but 
he  had  become  a  parasite  of  the  political  South.  Neither 
of  the  other  candidates  had  done  anything  to  commend 
him  to  any  opponent  of  the  slave  power.  One  department 
of  the  paper  was  headed  "  Political,"  and  was  opened 
"  that  our  anti-slavery  friends  may  have  such  information 
on  this  subject  as  they  ought  to  have  to  enable  them  to 
vote  understandingly.  .  .  .  Abolitionists  ought  to  desire  to 
see  in  office  men  who  go  for  right  first,  for  expediency 
next,  no  matter  in  what  party  they  may  be  found."  (June 
10.)  He  could  not  understand  a  man's  not  voting  or 
believing  one  way  and  voting  another.  "  Virtuous  prin 
ciple  can  not  exist  without  correspondent  action.  The 
sun  can  not  be  separated  from  its  light  and  warmth." 
Sept.  23,  1836,  he  wrote:  "Neither  of  the  candidates  (for 
the  presidency)  will  turn  to  the  cause  of  freedom  until  the 
people  turn,  and  either  of  them  will  when  they  do.  .  .  . 
If  abolitionists  unite  themselves  to  either  of  the  existing 
parties  they  will  weaken  their  influence  in  the  great  revo 
lution  that  has  begun.  ...  In  all  the  elections  the 
safest  rule  would  be  to  vote  for  those  who  are  honest  and 
capable  and  who  show  the  most  independent  and  unwav 
ering  regard  for  our  laws  and  common  liberties." 

October  28th  he  writes  :  "  We  can  not  forbear  making 
a  remark  as  to  the  inconsistency  of  many  of  our  abolition 
friends  when,  in  the  late  congressional  elections,  they  voted 
for  Mr.  Storer.  How  can  they  one  day  sign  petitions  to 
Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
and  on  the  next  vote  for  one  who  had  declared  Congress 
ought  to  have  nothing  to  do  in  the  matter?"  He  warns 


THE  EDITOR.  233 

them  that  such  inconsistency  will  retard  their  success  and 
possibly  prevent  it.  Owing  to  the  active  efforts  of  Mr. 
Birney  and  the  trifling  difference  in  the  numerical  strength 
of  parties  Mr.  Storer  was  defeated. 

In  Appleton's  "  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Biography  " 
Mr.  Storer  is  said  to  have  declined  a  renomination.  He 
ran  and  was  beaten. 

December  30th  he  tells  abolitionists  that  under  certain 
circumstances  "  it  became  their  religious  duty  to  resort  to 
political  action."  At  this  period  of  his  career  there  is 
nothing  tending  to  prove  that  he  contemplated  the  forma 
tion  of  an  independent  party.  Public  opinion,  even  among 
professed  anti-slavery  men,  was  not  yet  ripe  for  such  a 
movement.  Xor  was  it  yet  a  necessity.  It  seemed  prac 
ticable  at  that  time  to  influence  the  action  of  existing 
parties  by  using  the  abolition  vote  as  a  balance  of  power. 
Taking  as  texts  the  series  of  resolutions  passed  by  the 
Cincinnati  mob  meeting  of  January,  he  published  a  series 
of  articles  in  defense  of  the  liberty  of  the  press.  They 
were  in  the  form  of  letters  addressed  to  Judge  John  C. 
Wright,  the  author  of  the  resolutions.  The  judge  read 
them  and  never  attended  a  mob  meeting  afterward.  The 
articles  were  widely  copied  by  the  press,  and  their  argu 
ments  contributed  largely  to  open  the  eyes  of  publishers 
and  editors  to  their  own  danger  and  to  bring  a  sound 
public  opinion  to  bear  on  Congress. 

His  most  powerful  editorials  were  given  to  the  demon 
stration  of  the  harmony  of  abolition  measures  with  inter 
state  law  and  the  national  Constitution,  a  demonstration 
never  before  attempted.  They  ran  through  a  series  of 
numbers,  were  carefully  prepared,  and,  after  revision, 
were  reprinted  in  pamphlet  form  and  distributed  among 
anti-slavery  lecturers  and  speakers.  Partly  historical  and 
partly  legal,  they  vindicated  the  founders  of  the  Constitu 
tion  from  the  charge  of  having  entered  into  a  compact  to 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

perpetuate  slavery,  proving  by  their  membership  of  aboli 
tion  societies  and  the  early  abolition  laws  in  several  of  the 
States  and  by  other  facts  that  the  general  understanding 
or  implied  compact  among  the  framers  of  the  Constitu 
tion  was  that  slavery  should  be  abolished  in  all  the  States 
before  or  soon  after  1808.  Then,  in  an  analysis  of  the 
instrument  itself,  he  vindicated  it  from  the  charge  of 
guaranteeing  slavery.  The  argument  in  these  articles 
was,  in  its  main  lines,  identical  with  that  so  ably  elabo 
rated  and  published  in  1845  in  book-form  by  Lysander 
Spooner,  of  Boston.  It  was  generally  adopted  by  anti- 
slavery  lecturers  and  writers,  and  it  contributed  greatty  to 
keep  the  current  of  anti-slavery  effort  within  constitu 
tional  channels.  The  rejection  of  it  by  a  few  professional 
reformers  of  the  Boston  school  led  them  by  easy  grada 
tions  into  the  heresy  of  "  the  Constitution  a  covenant  with 
hell  "  and  its  corollary,  disunionism. 

The  power  of  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia,  the  freedom  of  a  slave  brought,  and  not 
escaping,  into  a  free  State,  the  necessity  of  enacting  per 
sonal-liberty  laws  in  the  free  States,  the  necessity  of  pre 
cautions  against  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  all  the 
means  of  resisting  the  encroachments  of  the  slave  power 
were  vigorously  and  frequently  discussed. 

The  proceedings  in  Congress  were  closely  watched  and 
reported,  and  praise  bestowed  upon  the  members  of  Con 
gress  who  were  defending  the  right  of  petition  and  the 
freedom  of  the  mails ;  among  wrhom  were  Senator  Thomas 
Morris,  and  Kepresentatives  Adams,  Evans,  and  Slade. 
Every  member  of  a  State  Legislature  who  stood  for  the 
right  was  honorably  mentioned ;  Leicester  King's  speech 
against  the  "  Black  Laws "  of  Ohio  was  published  and 
specially  commended.  The  action  of  each  church  on 
slavery  was  duly  noticed.  The  Michigan  Synod,  in  183G, 
declared  itself  for  "  immediate  abolition,"  as  also  the  Re- 


THE  EDITOR.  235 

formed  Presbyterian  Church  which  had  admitted  no  slave 
holder  to  membership  since  the  year  1800.  It  was  noted 
that  the  majority  of  preachers  belonging  to  the  New  Eng 
land  and  New  Hampshire  Conferences  of  the  Methodist 
Church  were  abolitionists.  The  discussion  of  slavery  in 
the  Methodist  General  Conference  at  Cincinnati  in  May 
was  reported  with  hearty  appreciation  of  the  noble  efforts 
of  Rev.  Orange  Scott  and  Rev.  George  Storrs  in  behalf  of 
the  right.  All  anti-slavery  movements  were  chronicled. 
In  short,  the  "Philanthropist,"  within  its  scope,  was  a 
well-edited  paper ;  and,  in  all  that  related  to  the  Constitu 
tion  and  laws  it  was  the  leader  and  representative  of  the 
conservative  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  country.  In 
the  Northwestern  States  its  influence  was  without  a  rival 
in  the  anti-slavery  press.  There  were  numerous  laudatory 
notices,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  of  the  editor  in  the  news 
papers  of  the  day,  but  these  were  never  copied  into  the 
"  Philanthropist  "  while  he  had  charge  of  it.  He  had  not 
the  infirmity  of  vanity. 

The  judgment  of  intelligent  contemporaries  on  the 
paper  and  its  editor  may  be  inferred  from  the  following 
extracts  taken  from  a  pamplet  letter  of  twenty- three  pages 
dated  November  1, 1836,  written  to  Mr.  Birney  by  Dr.  Will 
iam  Ellery  Channing,  the  celebrated  Boston  theologian. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  knowing  you  person 
ally,  but  your  history  and  writings  have  given  me  an  interest  in 
you  which  induces  and  encourages  me  to  address  you  with  some 
thing  of  the  freedom  of  acquaintance.  I  feel  myself  attracted  to 
the  friends  of  humanity  and  freedom,  however  distant ;  and  when 
such  are  exposed  by  their  principles  to  peril  and  loss,  and  stand 
firm  in  the  evil  day,  I  take  pleasure  in  expressing  to  them  my 
sympathy  and  admiration.  .  .  .  Liberty  suffers  from  nothing 
more  than  from  licentiousness,  and  I  fear  that  abolitionists  are 
not  to  be  absolved  from  the  abuse  of  it.  It  seems  to  me  that 
they  are  particularly  open  to  one  reproach — their  writings  have 
been  blemished  by  a  spirit  of  intolerance,  sweeping  censure,  and 


236  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

rash,  injurious  judgment.  I  do  not  mean  to  bring  this  charge 
against  all  their  publications.  Yours,  as  far  as  I  have  seen  them, 
are  honorable  exceptions ;  and  others,  I  know,  deserve  the  same 
praise.  But  abolitionism,  in  the  main,  has  spoken  in  an  intoler 
ant  tone,  and  in  this  way  has  repelled  many  good  minds,  given 
advantage  to  its  opponents,  and  diminished  the  energy  and  effect 
of  its  appeals.  I  should  rejoice  to  see  it  purified  from  this  stain  * 
(P-  8). 

The  above  letter  appeared  in  the  second  volume  of 
Channing's  complete  works.  The  preface,  dated  Decem 
ber  20,  1836,  begins : 

The  following  letter  was  prepared  for  the  "Philanthropist," 
an  anti-slavery  paper,  published  at  Cincinnati,  and  edited  by 
James  G.  Birney,  a  gentleman  highly  respected  for  his  intellect 
ual  and  moral  endowments. 

The  first  campaign  of  the  slave-power  against  the  liber 
ties  of  the  country  began  with  the  opening  of  Congress  in 
December,  1835,  and  ended  with  the  presidential  election 
in  November,  1836.  The  results  may  be  summed  up  as 
follows : 

Victories — The  adoption  by  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  of  the  rule  known  as  the  gag-law  and  the  admission 
of  Arkansas  as  a  slave  State. 

.  Defeats — Failure  to  pass  any  -law  prohibiting  anti- 
slavery  publications  or  their  transmission  through  the 
mails  or  investing  the  States  (Calhoun's  plan)  with  the 
legal  right  to  prescribe  what  publications  might  be  deliv 
ered  from  the  post-offices  within  their  respective  limits ; 
failure  to  induce  any  free  State  to  pass  laws  for  the  sup- 

*  Dr.  Channing's  criticism  was  intended,  no  doubt,  to  apply  to  the 
"  Liberator,"  published  in  Boston.  It  does  not  apply  to  the  writings  of 
Judge  William  Jay,  or  to  those  of  Joshua  Leavitt,  or  of  Theodore  I). 
Weld,  or  of  William  Goodell.  The  publications  issued  at  New  York  by 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  were  marked  by  candor  and  freedom 
from  the  exaggeration  of  fanaticism. 


THE  EDITOR.  237 

pression  of  anti-slavery  papers  or  for  the  delivery  of  abo 
litionists  to  slave-State  governors  on  demand ;  failure  to 
suppress  any  anti-slavery  paper  by  mob  violence ;  and  fail 
ure  to  get  Congress  to  vote  that  it  had  no  power  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

The  reaction  at  the  North  against  the  demands  of  the 
slave  power  indicated  a  state  of  public  sentiment  which 
made  politicians  afraid  to  vote  for  them ;  it  was  a  very  un 
certain  factor  in  the  pending  political  elections. 

The  Legislature  of  Vermont  voted  that  "  neither  Con 
gress  nor  the  State  governments  have  any  Constitutional 
right  to  abridge  the  free  expression  of  opinions  or  the 
transmission  of  them  through  the  public  mails,"  and  that 
Congress  do  possess  the  power  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia. 

The  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  sustained  by  strong 
resolutions  the  right  to  petition,  and  the  right  of  Congress 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District,  and  declared  slavery  "  a 
great  social,  moral,  and  political  evil."  These  were  voted 
in  the  House  by  a  majority  of  378  to  16. 

The  Judiciary  Committee  of  the  lower  branch  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Legislature  reported  (Thaddeus  Stevens, 
chairman)  the  following  resolution  :  "  That  Congress  does 
possess  the  constitutional  power,  and  it  is  expedient  to 
abolish  slavery  and  the  slave  trade  within  the  District  of 
Columbia." 

Governor  Ritner,  of  that  State,  in  his  annual  message, 
reprimanded  "  the  base  bowing  of  the  knee  to  the  dark 
spirit  of  slavery." 

There  were  numerous  other  indications  of  a  rising 
spirit  of  resistance  at  the  North,  and  the  leaders  of  the 
slave  power  thought  it  wiser  to  postpone  effort  until  after 
the  presidential  election.  Their  storming  party  had  failed, 
and  they  proposed  to  proceed  more  cautiously. 

Mr.  Birney  was  greatly  encouraged  by  the  result.  "  The 


238  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

people,"  he  wrote,  "  are  sound  at  heart.  They  love  liberty 
at  home  more  than  slavery  in  the  South."  In  a  letter, 
published  October  28th,  "To  the  Slave-holders  of  the 
South,"  he  says : 

If  it  [slavery]  must  be  relinquished,  as  I  now  believe  it  will 
be  in  a  very  few  years,  I  pray  you  that  you  so  act  in  the  South 
and  so  control  the  zeal  of  your  friends  in  the  North  that  it  may 
be  relinquished  bloodlessly,  peaceably,  happily. 

In  his  public  speeches  about  that  date,  he  expressed 
his  conviction  that  slavery  would  not  endure  more  than 
about  twenty-five  years;  that  the  encroachments  of  the 
slave  power  would  be  resisted  step  by  step  by  a  constantly 
increasing  force ;  that  it  would  gain  no  more  clean  victo 
ries,  and  would  finally  be  overwhelmed ;  that  the  struggle 
would  be  prolonged  if  Florida  and  Texas  should  be  ad 
mitted  as  slave  States ;  and  that  it  might  end  in  war  unless 
public  opinion  in  the  free  States  should  speedily  be  re 
formed  so  as  to  exclude  "  dough  faces  "  from  Congress  and 
place  the  National  Government  firmly  on  the  side  of  free 
dom.  To  restrict  slavery  to  its  existing  limits,  add  free 
States  as  the  growth  of  population  might  require,  and  en 
force  the  law  of  freedom  in  the  Territories  and  District  of 
Columbia,  was  sufficient  in  his  view  to  lead  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery  by  the  voluntary  action  of  the  slave  States  them 
selves. 

For  the  first  ten  months  of  183G  Mr.  Birney's  labors 
were  chiefly  editorial.  His  duties,  however,  in  connection 
with  the  executive  committees  of  the  State  and  national 
anti-slavery  societies  and  as  a  public  speaker  became  so 
imperative  that,  in  the  summer,  the  minor  duties  of  the 
editorial  department  were  devolved  upon  Dr.  Gamaliel 
Bailey.  In  October,  Dr.  Bailey  was  announced  as  assistant 
editor ;  and  although  Mr.  Birney  retained  the  control  of 
the  course  of  the  paper  until  he  removed  to  New  York  in 


THE  EDITOR.  239 

the  last  week  of  September,  1837,  his  contributions  grad 
ually  became  limited  to  the  leaders  only.  On  his  removal 
Dr.  Bailey  *  succeeded  to  the  editorship. 

*  The  doctor  had  been  reared  by  pious  parents.  They  were  members  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  which  had  never  admitted  slave-holders 
to  membership  or  the  communion.  From  boyhood  he  had  been  an  im 
mediate  abolitionist.  In  1834  he  had  fraternized  with  the  Lane  Seminary 
students.  In  1847  he  transferred  his  paper  to  Washington  city,  changed 
its  name  to  the  "  National  Era,"  and  managed  it  with  great  ability  as  the 
organ  of  the  political  abolitionists.  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  was  first  pub 
lished  in  his  paper  in  chapters. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE  MOB  AT  CINCINNATI,  JULY,  IS 36— PRO- SLAVERY 
MOBS. 

SOO:N"  after  the  mob  meeting  at  the  court-house  in 
January,  the  editor  of  the  "  Philanthropist  "  announced 
in  its  columns  that  after  the  month  of  March  the  paper 
would  be  printed  and  published  at  Cincinnati.  It  had 
been  found  impracticable  to  rent  a  building  in  the  city  at 
an  earlier  date.  At  the  appointed  time  the  office  was 
opened  in  the  upper  stories  of  the  building  on  the  north 
east  corner  of  Main  and  Seventh  Streets.  The  situation 
was  central  and  on  the  chief  business  street.  The  re 
moval  of  the  press  and  types  was  effected  by  daylight  and 
without  concealment.  It  excited  little  interest.  A  po 
liceman  looked  on  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  street. 
Passers-by  asked  a  few  questions,  but  there  was  no  inter 
ference. 

From  that  time  until  the  12th  of  July  following  the 
paper  was  published  without  molestation.  A  sign  about 
eighteen  feet  long  and  bearing  the  words  "  Anti-Slavery 
Office  "  was  conspicuous  on  the  Main  Street  front  of  the 
building.  Abolition  pamphlets  and  books  were  kept  for 
sale,  and  buyers  and  subscribers  were  constantly  passing 
in  and  out.  Mr.  Birney  was  there  almost  daily.  His 
figure  was  a  familiar  one  on  Main  Street  and  in  the  cen 
tral  part  of  the  city.  He  resided  on  the  west  side  of  Race 
Street,  the  second  door  above  Eighth.  He  lectured  in  the 


PRO-SLAVERY   MOBS. 

city  and  the  suburbs,  attended  the  Sixth  Street  Presby 
terian  Church  regularly,  and  was  known  by  sight  to  thou 
sands  of  the  inhabitants.  He  was  uniformly  treated  with 
respect,  though  he  could  not  but  be  aware  that  he  was 
often  pointed  out  to  strangers  as  a  person  to  be  looked  at. 
For  two  months  and  twelve  days  not  a  single  paragraph 
appeared  against  him  in  any  city  newspaper  and  no  move 
ment  was  made  against  his  press.  July  12th  (we  quote 
from  the  "  Narrative  of  Eiotous  Proceedings  ") : 

At  midnight  a  band  of  thirty  or  forty  men,  including  those 
who  stood  as  sentries  at  different  points  on  the  street,  made  an 
assault  on  the  premises  of  Mr.  Pugh,  the  printer,  scaled  a  high 
wall  by  which  the  lot  was  inclosed,  and  with  the  aid  of  a  ladder 
and  plank  mounted  the  roof  of  the  press-office.  They  then  made 
their  way  through  a  window  on  the  roof  into  the  room  below, 
intimidated  into  silence  by  threats  of  bodily  violence  a  boy  who 
was  asleep  there,  covered  his  head  with  the  bed-clothes  to  pre 
vent  him  from  seeing  who  were  the  perpetrators,  tore  up  the 
paper  that  was  prepared  for  that  week's  number  of  the  "Philan 
thropist,"  as  well  as  a  large  part  of  the  impression  of  a  number 
that  had  not  been  mailed,  destroyed  the  ink,  dismantled  the 
press,  and  carried  away  many  of  its  principal  parts. 

Although  about  two  hours  were  occupied  in  this  vio 
lence  and  the  premises  were  on  one  of  the  principal  streets 
of  the  city  and  the  noise  made  was  great,  no  policeman 
made  his  appearance.  Three  of  the  operatives  in  this 
raid  on  property  came  from  Covington,  Ky.,  and  a  large 
number  of  the  band  was  made  up  of  slave-holders  who 
were  temporarily  stopping  at  the  city  hotels.  Joseph 
Graham,  a  city  salesman  in  the  Southern  trade  and  mem 
ber  of  the  Texas  Aid  Committee,  was  an  active  partici 
pator. 

On  the  morning  of  the  14th,  a  handbill  headed  "  Abo 
litionists  beware !  "  and  menacing  the  abolitionists  if  they 
should  "re-establish  their  press,"  was  placarded  on  the 
12 


242  JAMES  G.  BIKXEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

street  corners.  It  transpired  afterward  that  this  was  writ 
ten  by  Joseph  Graham  and  printed  in  Covington.  In  the 
afternoon  the  "Evening  Post,"  edited  by  South  Caro 
linians,  published  an  inflammatory  article  repeating  the 
threats  of  the  handbill.  On  the  15th  the  "  Philanthro 
pist "  appeared  at  its  usual  hour.  In  the  afternoon  Mr. 
Birney  and  two  friends  called  on  Mayor  Davies,  and,  on 
his  promise  to  issue- a  suitable  proclamation,  deposited  one 
hundred  dollars  with  him  as  a  reward  for  the  detection  of 
the  rioters.  The  proclamation  appeared  next  day  and 
contained  the  following  paragraph  : 

And  I  do  earnestly  entreat  those  persons  whose  proceedings, 
it  is  alleged,  have  prompted  to  the  commission  of  the  riot  com 
plained  of,  as  they  value  the  quiet  of  the  city,  to  abstain  from 
the  further  prosecution  of  such  measures  as  may  have  a  tendency 
to  inflame  the  public  mind  and  lead  to  acts  of  violence  and  dis 
order,  in  contempt  of  the  laws  and  disgraceful  to  the  city. 

This  manifesto,  so  well  calculated  to  assure  the  rioters 
of  his  sympathy,  reminded  abolitionists  that  Mayor  Davies 
had  presided  at  the  mob  meeting  in  January  and  had  done 
his  best  at  that  time  to  excite  to  violence.  It  appeared 
also  that  in  private  conversations  he  had  frequently  de 
clared  his  hopes  that  Mr.  Birney  would  be  mobbed,  and 
that  on  the  night  of  the  12th  instant  the  policeman  on 
the  beat  including  the  Anti-Slavery  Office  had  been  sent, 
by  the  mayor's  orders,  to  another  part  of  the  city.  An  in 
terview  with  Mayor  Davies  to  protest  against  his  proclama 
tion  left  the  conviction  on  Mr.  Birney's  mind  that  no  in 
terference  with  the  mob  could  be  expected  from  that 
official.  On  the  17th  a  handbill  signed  "  Old  Kentucky  '' 
was  posted  up  in  the  streets,  offering  a  reward  for  the  de 
livery  of  "  one  James  G.  Birney."  That,  too,  was  after 
ward  shown  to  have  been  the  literary  work  of  young 
Graham.  On  the  18th  the  executive  committee  published 


PRO-SLAVERY  MOBS.  243 

a  vigorous  address  to  the  people  of  Cincinnati.    Its  closing 
words  were  : 

We  have  now  in  some  degree,  from  the  force  of  circum 
stances,  committed  to  our  custody  the  rights  of  every  freeman  in 
Ohio,  of  their  offspring,  of  our  own.  Shall  we  as  cravens  volun 
tarily  offer  them  up,  sacrifices  to  the  spirit  of  misrule  and  op 
pression,  or  as  American  citizens  contend  for  them  till  a  force 
which  we  can  not  withstand  shall  wrest  them  from  our  hands  ? 
The  latter  part  of  the  alternative  we  have  embraced  with  a  full 
determination  by  the  help  of  God  to  maintain  unimpaired  the 
freedom  of  speech  and  the  liberty  of  the  press,  the  palladium 
of  our  rights. 

The  interpretation  put  upon  this  address  was  that  it 
meant  resistance  by  force.  The  little  band  of  mobocrats 
halted  and  called  for  recruits.  The  politicians  came  to 
their  aid.  The  "Whig,"  the  "Republican"  and  the 
"  Post "  published  inflammatory  articles  daily.  The  "  Ga 
zette,"  Charles  Hammond,  editor,  said  nothing  editorially, 
but  published  anonymous  cards  as  advertisements.  One 
of  the  articles  in  the  "  Whig  "  suggested  "  dangling  from 
a  bough  "  and  a  "  dress  of  tar  and  feathers."  An  anony 
mous  advertisement  appeared  in  the  papers  calling  a  meet 
ing  of  citizens  at  six  o'clock,  Saturday  evening,  the  23d,  at 
the  Lower  Market,  "  to  decide  whether  they  will  permit  the 
publication  or  distribution  of  abolition  papers  in  this  city," 
and  naming  forty-two*  respectable  citizens  to  prepare 
resolutions  to  be  voted  on.  The  place  and  time  indicated 
an  intention  to  get  together  a  crowd  of  workingmen  and 
Kentuckians  and  have  the  mob  after  the  adjournment. 
Xo  public  meeting  had  ever  been  held  at  the  Lower 
Market.  The  meeting  was  not  more  than  one  third  part 
as  large  as  was  expected  by  its  projectors — not  more  than 

*  Of  those  named,  twenty-nine  took  no  part  in  preparing  the  reso 
lutions  or  in  the  meeting  or  in  the  mob  proceedings. 


244  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

one  thousand  persons  were  present,  including  boys,  market- 
dealers,  passers-by,  drawn  by  the  music  of  a  band,  the  idly 
curious  and  a  goodly  number  of  abolitionists ;  the  mob 
party,  including  Kentuckians,  numbered  between  two  and 
three  hundred.  The  respectable  merchants  who  had  been 
expected  to  act  as  officers  were  not  present.  A  change 
of  programme  was,  therefore,  made  ;  William  Burke,  the 
Democratic  city  postmaster,  Morgan  Neville,  the  Demo 
cratic  receiver,  and  Timothy  Walker,  a  prominent  Whig 
and  expectant  office-holder,  were  elected  president,  vice- 
president,  and  secretary. 

After  passing  resolutions  prepared,  it  was  said,  by  Mr. 
Neville,  including  one  pledging  the  persons  present  to 
"  use  all  lawful  means  to  discountenance  and  suppress 
every  publication  in  this  city  which  advocates  the  modern 
doctrines  of  abolitionism,"  it  was  thought  best  to  post 
pone  the  suppression.  An  impromptu  resolution  was  ac 
cordingly  passed,  authorizing  the  chair  to  appoint  a  com 
mittee  of  twelve,  which,  with  the  officers  of  the  meeting, 
should  "  wait  upon  James  G.  Birney  and  his  associates 
...  to  remonstrate  with  him,"  etc. 

This  unexpected  move  was  designed,  no  doubt,  by 
Burke,  Neville,  and  Walker,  to  force  prominent  Whigs 
to  come  to  the  front  and  take  their  part  of  the  responsi 
bility.  The  chair  appointed  twelve  citizens,  nine  of  them 
Whigs.  Two  of  the  twelve  did  not  act.  The  other  ten 
were  Jacob  Burnet,  Josiah  Lawrence,  Robert  Buchanan, 
Nicholas  Longworth,  0.  M.  Spencer,  David  Loring,  David 
T.  Disney,  Thomas  W.  Bakewell,  John  P.  Foote,  and 
William  Greene.  Most  of  these  were  wealthy  men,  iden 
tified  with  politics  and  contributors  to  the  funds  of  their 
respective  parties.  Having  been  forced  by  Burke's  adroit 
ness  into  a  false  position,  the  Whigs  had  not  the  manhood 
to  refuse  to  stand  in  it.  David  T.  Disney  was  a  Demo 
cratic  politician,  and  both  he  and  William  Greene,  with 


PRO-SLAVERY  MOBS.  245 

Joseph  Graham,  were  then  actively  engaged  in  forwarding 
arms  and  men  to  aid  the  Texans.  The  committee  began 
its  remonstrances,  every  member  of  it  knowing  that  Mr. 
Birney  would  not  lay  down  his  rights  at  their  bidding. 
A  week  followed  of  correspondence  and  interviews,  with  a 
running  accompaniment  of  daily  incendiary  articles  in  the 
"  Whig,"  "  Republican,"  and  "  Post,"  ending  in  a  peremp 
tory  demand  by  the  committee  of  discontinuance,  and  a 
firm  negative  answer  by  the  executive  committee  of  the 
Anti- Slavery  Society.  A  part  only  of  this  answer  was 
published  by  the  Market  House  Committee.  The  follow 
ing  is  one  of  the  omitted  paragraphs  : 

We  believe  that  a  large  portion  of  the  people  of  Cincinnati 
are  utterly  opposed  to  the  prostration  of  the  liberty  of  the  press, 
and  that  there  is  among  us,  whatever  may  be  said  to  the  con 
trary,  enough  of  correct  and  sober  feeling  to  uphold  the  laws,  if 
our  puNic  officers  faithfully  discharge  their  duty. 

On  the  morning  of  July  30th,  it  being  Saturday,  and  the 
night  the  best  of  the  week  to  get  up  a  mob,  the  Market- 
House  Committee  published  in  every  city  daily  (except  the 
"  Gazette,"  which  refused  to  publish  it  before  Monday)  the 
failure  of  its  "remonstrances."  With  the  conventional 
hypocrisy  of  the  mobocrats  of  the  period,  they  closed  their 
announcement  in  the  following  words  : 

They  owe  it  to  themselves  and  those  whom  they  represent  to 
express  the  utmost  abhorrence  of  everything  like  violence ;  and 
earnestly  to  implore  their  fellow-citizens  to  abstain  therefrom. 

How  slyly  these  Tartuffes  must  have  smiled  together 
when  they  signed  that  passage ! 

After  tendering  to  the  mayor,  on  Friday,  the  services 
of  themselves  and  friends  for  the  preservation  of  order  as 
special  policemen,  and  being  unable  to  obtain  from  him 
any  assurance  that  he  would  take  any  steps  whatever 
against  the  mob  party,  the  majority  of  the  executive  com- 


246  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

mittee  decided  to  leave  to  him  the  entire  responsibility. 
Mr.  Pugh,  the  owner  of  the  printing-press  and  type,  was 
a  Quaker,  and  he  absolutely  refused  to  have  any  armed 
resistance  made  to  the  expected  mob. 

At  six  o'clock  P.  M.,  a  preparatory  meeting  of  the  mob 
operators  was  held,  Joseph  Graham  presiding.  It  was  re 
solved  :  1,  that  the  press  should  be  destroyed  and  types 
thrown  in  the  street ;  and,  2,  that  Mr.  Birney  should  be 
notified  to  leave  the  city  in  twenty-four  hours.  About 
fifty  persons  were  present,  mostly  clerks  and  Kentuckians. 
Of  these,  ten  or  twelve  were  stout  workmen,  who  took  no 
part  in  the  proceedings,  and  had  the  air  of  men  receiving 
orders  to  do  work  for  which  they  were  paid.  The  follow 
ing  account  of  the  mob  was  given  in  the  "  Gazette  "  of 
the  following  Monday : 

DESTRUCTION  OF  PROPERTY. 

On  Saturday  night,  July  30th,  very  soon  after  dark,  a  concourse 
of  citizens  assembled  at  the  corner  of  Main  and  Seventh  Streets 
in  this  city,  and,  upon  a  short  consultation,  broke  open  the 
printing-office  of  the  "Philanthropist,"  the  abolition  paper,  scat 
tered  the  type  into  the  streets,  tore  down  the  presses,  and  com 
pletely  dismantled  the  office.  It  was  owned  by  A.  Pugh,  a 
peaceable  and  orderly  printer,  who  published  the  "  Philanthro 
pist  "  for  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  of  Ohio.  From  the  printing- 
office,  the  crowd  went  to  the  house  of  A.  Pugh,  where  they  sup 
posed  there  were  other  printing  materials,  but  found  none  nor 
offered  any  violence.  Then  to  the  Messrs  Donaldson's,  where 
ladies  only  were  at  home.  The  residence  of  Mr.  Birney,  tin- 
editor,  was  then  visited.  No  person  wras  at  home  but  a  youth,* 

*  I  was  the  youth  and  seventeen  years  of  age  at  that  time.  I  was 
alone,  my  mother  with  the  younger  children  being  then  on  a  two  months' 
visit  to  relatives  in  Kentucky,  and  my  father  having  gone  to  Lebanon, 
Ohio,  to  deliver  the  third  of  a  series  of  Saturday  evening  anti-slavery 
lectures.  On  seeing  the  crowd  approaching,  which  it  did  without  outcry, 
and  quietly  as  if  under  control  of  leaders,  I  stepped  out  of  the  front 
door,  closing  it  behind  me  and  remaining  on  the  door-sill.  Joseph  Gra- 


PRO-SLAVERY  MOBS.  217 

upon  whose  explanations  the  house  was  left  undisturbed.  A 
shout  was  raised  for  Dr.  Colby's,  and  the  concourse  returned  to 
Main  Street,  proposing  to  pile  up  the  contents  of  the  office  in  the 
street  and  make  a  bonfire  of  them.  Joseph  Graham  mounted 
the  pile  and  advised  against  burning  it,  lest  the  houses  near 
might  take  fire.  A  portion  of  the  press  was  then  dragged  down 
the  Main  Street,  broken  up,  and  thrown  into  the  river.  The  Ex 
change  was  then  visited  and  refreshments  taken.  .  .  .  An  attack 
was  then  made  upon  the  residence  of  some  blacks  in  Church 
Alley  ;  two  guns  were  fired  upon  the  assailants  and  they  re 
coiled.  ...  It  was  some  time  before  a  rally  could  be  again  made, 
several  voices  declaring  that  they  did  not  wish  to  endanger  them 
selves.  A  second  attack  was  made,  the  houses  were  found  empty 
and  their  interior  contents  destroyed.  It  was  now  about  mid 
night,  when  the  party  parading  down  Main  Street  was  addressed 
by  the  mayor,  who  had  leen  a  silent  spectator  of  the  destruction  of 
the  printing-office.  He  told  them  they  might  as  well  now  dis 
perse.  A  dispersion  to  a  considerable  extent  followed. 

The  mayor's  speech  was  reported  in  full.  It  was  short. 
The  most  striking  passage  was  : 

We  have  done  enough  for  one  night.  .  .  .  The  abolitionists 
themselves  must  be  convinced  by  this  time  what  public  sentiment 
is,  and  that  it  will  not  do  any  longer  to  disregard  or  set  it  at 
naught.  ...  As  you  can  not  punish  the  guilty  without  endan 
gering  the  innocent,  I  advise  you  all  to  go  home. 

Sunday  evening,  a  small  crowd  of  persons  collected  on 
Main  Street,  opposite  the  Franklin  boarding-house.  It 
was  rumored  that  Mr.  Birney  was  there.  The  "  Gazette  " 

ham,  who  appeared  to  bo  in  command,  asked  me:  "Who  are  you?"  I 
gave  him  my  name.  "  Where  is  your  fat'ier?"  "  In  Warren  County." 
"  Is  anybody  else  in  the  house  ?  "  "  Xo."  He  turned  to  consult  with  his 
friends,  and  I  stepped  quickly  inside,  turned  the  key  in  the  door-lock,  and 
took  my  stand  on  the  first  stair  platform,  to  give  a  due  reception  to  the 
expected  intruders.  I  had  within  reach  about  forty  rounds.  After  con 
sulting  several  minutes,  the  crowd  moved  away  quietly.  From  beginning 
to  end,  there  was  in  its  manner  no  indication  of  popular  excitement. 


248  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  August  4  reported  the  following  most  extraordinary 
act  on  the  part  of  Mayor  Davies :  The  mayor,  with  one  or 
two  citizens,  "  officiated  as  a  domiciliary  committee  to 
examine  the  house,  and  reported  that  the  object  of  search 
was  not  there.*'  Mr.  Birney  returned  to  the  city  on  Mon 
day,  and  remained  there  without  molestation. 

The  extraordinary  conduct  of  the  mayor  illustrates  the 
folly  of  placing  in  command  of  a  city  police  force  a  person 
of  neither  social  standing  nor  pecuniary  responsibility  nor 
regard  for  law.  Davies  was  a  servile  parasite  of  the  poli 
ticians  who  had  placed  him  in  office.  On  Monday,  how 
ever,  public  opinion  declared  itself  strongly  against  his 
course.  Several  volunteer  companies  organized  to  preserve 
order,  and  the  mayor  reluctantly  swore  them  in  as  special 
policemen.  Disorder  ceased  at  once.  Forty  leading  citi 
zens,  including  Charles  Hammond,  Salmon  P.  Chase, 
William  D.  Gallagher,  Thomas  II.  Shreve,  E.  Hulse,  M. 
Lyon,  E.  W.  Chester,  James  Calhoun,  and  J.  M.  McCul- 
lough,  and  not  including  a  single  political  wire-worker, 
signed  the  following  call : 

PUBLIC  MEETING. 

The  friends  of  order,  of  law  and  the  Constitution,  having  no 
connection  with  the  Anti- Slavery  Society,  and  who  are  opposed 
to  the  action  of  a  mob  under  any  possible  circumstances,  are  re 
quested  to  meet  this  afternoon  (Tuesday)  at  three  o'clock  at  the 
court-house. 

It  is  useless  for  our  purpose  to  enter  into  further  de 
tails  relating  to  this  mob.  A  "  Narrative  of  the  late  Riot 
ous  Proceedings,"  etc.  (forty-six  octavo  pages)  was  written 
and  published  soon  after  by  Mr.  Birney,  and  was  widely 
circulated  throughout  the  country. 

Several  facts  must  be  evident  to  every  careful  reader  of 
the  foregoing  statements :  1,  that  the  movement  was  be 
gun  by  Southern  visitors  and  a  few  irresponsible  and 


PRO-SLAVERY  MOBS.  249 

obscure  persons  in  trade  and  would  have  failed  if  it  had 
not  been  countenanced  by  three  political  daily  newspapers 
and  by  persons  prominent  both  in  trade  and  politics  ;  2, 
that  the  operatives  were  men  hired  to  do  the  work  and 
not  men  who  volunteered  for  the  purpose  under  a  strong 
popular  excitement ;  and,  3,  that  the  success  of  the 
mob  was  assured  in  advance  by  the  countenance  and  co 
operation  of  the  mayor. 

In  the  leading  editorial  of  the  first  number  of  the 
"  Philanthropist  "  issued  after  the  mob,  it  is  stated : 

A  good-looking  young  man,  while  the  mob  were  in  the  office, 
proclaimed  from  a  conspicuous  place  if  six  others  would  join 
him,  he  would  put  a  stop  to  the  violence.  But  it  was  known  the 
mayor  was  there,  that  he  was  a  quiet  spectator  of  what  was  doing. 
This  discouraged  all.  Had  he  summoned  aid  he  would  have 
been  instantly  joined  by  hundreds. 

In  the  same  article  Mr.  Birney  stated  that  no  Irish 
Catholic,*  or  Englishman,  or  German  was  concerned  in 
the  mob.  At  that  time  about  half  the  population  of  Cin 
cinnati  were  foreigners.  The  Germans  alone  numbered 
about  ten  thousand.  He  estimated  the  adult  American 
male  population  of  the  city  at  five  thousand,  and  of  this 
number  that  not  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  could  be 
found  willing  to  join  in  destroying  an  anti-slavery  print 
ing  press.  This  was  a  dispassionate  view  of  the  facts. 
And  yet  Cincinnati,  by  its  proximity  to  Kentucky  and 
its  large  Southern  trade  and  great  number  of  Southern 
visitors,  especially  in  the  summer,  was  more  liable  to 
mob  violence  than  any  other  city  in  the  free  States. 
That  city  and  Alton,  111.,  were  the  only  two  Xorthern 
cities  in  which  a  prominent  abolitionist  could  reasonably 

*  Bishop  Purcell,  afterward  archbishop,  was  an  Irish  Catholic  and 
favored  anti-slavery  opinions.  His  younger  brother,  a  priest  and  an  able 
man,  was  an  abolitionist  of  the  O'Connell  type. 


250  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

entertain  apprehensions  of  any  attempt  upon  his  life  or 
person. 

And  here,  in  the  interest  of  historical  truth,  I  wish  to 
enter  a  protest  against  the  customary  conventional  exag 
gerations  of  (the  Northern  mobs  in  "  abolition  times." 
Having  lived  in  Cincinnati  eleven  of  the  years  between 
1835  and  1848,  and  having  seen  every  mob  in  that  city 
and  a  good  many  in  the  other  parts  of  Ohio,  and  heard  the 
facts  touching  those  in  other  States  during  that  period,  I 
must  say  they  were,  as  a  general  thing,  not  dangerous 
either  to  life  or  limb,  or  beyond  the  power  of  the  police  to 
suppress.  Meetings  were  assailed  by  missiles  thrown  by 
thoughtless  boys,  prompted  secretly  by  their  elders.  The 
smashing  a  few  panes  of  glass  in  a  church  or  town-hall 
was  not  uncommon.  It  was  a  good  practical  joke  to  throw 
eggs  into  a  congregation  and  run  away  to  escape  punish 
ment.  Speakers  were  rudely  interrupted.  But  these 
minor  forms  of  mobocratic  annoyance  were  in  a  ratio  prob 
ably  of  less  than  one  to  a  hundred  anti-slavery  meetings. 
More  serious  ones,  though  much  talked  of,  were  very  rare. 
"  Tar  and  feathers  "  figured  largely  in  newspaper  articles 
and  pro-slavery  speeches ;  but  of  the  thousands  of  anti- 
slavery  lecturers  one  only  was  subjected  to  that  indignity, 
and  that  was  as  early  as  1834.  Not  a  man  was  hurt  seri 
ously  in  New  England.  The  profuse  rhetoric  of  certain 
Massachusetts  writers  about  "abolition  martyrs"  might 
lead  a  careless  reader  to  imagine  that  hecatombs  of  men 
were  slaughtered  on  the  altar  of  slavery ;  but  I  remember 
no  abolitionist  but  Love  joy  who  lost  his  life.  The  mobs 
were  misdemeanors  at  law  and  political  crimes,  being  aimed 
at  the  freedom  of  the  press  and  of  speech,  but  very  few 
persons  were  hurt.  The  famous  Utica  mob  of  1835  did 
no  physical  damage  to  anybody.  Pennsylvania  Hall  was 
burned  in  1838,  and  the  houses  of  the  Tappans  were  sacked 
in  1834 ;  but  these  mobs  were  especially  dangerous  because 


PRO-SLAVERY  MOBS.  251 

they  consisted  chiefly  of  slave-holders  and  their  hirelings, 
aided  by  the  idle  rabble  always  ready  for  any  excitement 
which  is  without  danger. 

Though  homicidal  in  intent,  they  in  fact  made  no 
martyrs.  In  the  dangerous  class  of  mobs  must  be  placed 
those  excited  against  Englishmen  where  traditional  patriotic 
hatred  whetted  to  keenness  pro-slavery  zeal.  If  the  Boston 
mob  of  October,  1835,  had  seized  George  Thompson,  he 
would  probably  not  have  escaped  alive;  but  no  Boston 
pro-slavery  mob  from  1830  to  1850  ever  harmed  any  one 
personally.  The  most  dangerous  mob  at  Cincinnati  was 
the  one  in  1841,  against  the  English  confectioner,  Burnett. 
He  was  a  zealous  abolitionist,  bold  as  a  lion,  and  had  a 
sharp  tongue  which  he  used  freely  against  slave-holders 
and  their  abettors.  He  was  generous  and  genial,  and  had 
warm  friends.  Having  rescued  a  slave  girl  and  sent  her 
safely  to  Canada,  he  jeered  at  the  masters  and  some  con 
stables  wrho  were  seeking  for  the  fugitive.  The  anti- 
English  mania  was  aroused.  A  mob  collected  on  three 
successive  evenings  to  take  Burnett  from  his  house  and 
hang  him.  He  disdained  to  run ;  besides,  his  person  was 
so  generally  known  that  he  could  hardly  have  escaped. 
Twelve  friends  helped  him  and  his  two  sons  to  defend  his 
house.  The  numerous  assaults  were  repulsed  by  throwing 
lumps  of  stove  coal  from  the  upper  windows.  A  large 
quantity  was  daily  transferred  from  the  cellar  to  the  upper 
floors.  Firearms  were  reserved  for  the  last  resort.  Donn 
Piatt,  late  editor  of  "  Belford's  Magazine,"  was  one  of  the 
garrison,  and  the  writer  personally  knows  he  did  his  duty. 
Many  of  the  assailants  were  severely  injured ;  but  the 
assailed,  owing  to  the  adjustment  of  slanting  barricades  in 
front  of  the  windows  and  the  great  strength  of  the  lower 
door  and  window  blinds,  escaped  with  a  few  bruises.  On 
the  third  night,  at  a  very  late  hour,  the  mayor  interfered ; 
but  not  until  the  garrison  had  threatened  to  use  its  fire- 


252  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

arms.  Such  a  conflict  never  took  place,  it  is  believed,  in 
any  other  city.  Mayor  Spencer  was  a  brother  of  0.  M. 
Spencer.  He  was  a  bitter  anti-abolitionist,  and  probably 
thought  it  desirable  that  Burnett  and  his  friends  should 
be  worsted.  At  any  rate,  he  let  the  mob  run  for  three 
nights,  and  the  "  anti-Burnett  mob  "  took  rank  with  the 
"  anti-bank  mob  "  of  a  previous  date.* 

In  several  accepted  accounts  of  the  early  struggle 
against  the  slave  power,  James  G.  Birney  is  represented  as 
having  often  suffered  from  mob-violence ;  this  is  not  true. 
No  man  ever  laid  an  unfriendly  hand  upon  him  during 
his  public  career.  A  few  of  his  meetings  were  interrupted 
or  disturbed;  and,  on  one  occasion  some  missiles  were 
thrown  at  him  from  a  distance  as  he  rode  out  of  a  town, 
but  he  was  untouched.  He  used  to  say  that,  notwith 
standing  statements  of  the  great  number  of  anti-abolition 
mobs,  not  a  single  abolitionist  had  been  mobbed  half  as 
often  as  John  Wesley,  the  preacher  of  Methodism — a  com 
parison  which  he  thought  was  honorable  to  the  American 
people.  He  published  a  list  of  more  than  thirty  mobs 
against  Wesley.  If  he  had  survived  until  the  present  time, 
he  might  have  proved  that  the  saloon  interest  has  quad 
rupled  the  mobs  excited  in  the  North  by  the  slave  power 
and  its  parasites ;  and  that  the  prohibitionists  number 
three  martyrs  among  their  prominent  men  to  one  on  the 
roll  of  abolitionists.  While  he  exposed  the  persecutions 
directed  against  himself  and  other  abolitionists,  he  did  not 
exaggerate  them  or  celebrate  them  in  anniversary  meet 
ings  ;  and  he  checked  a  certain  tendency  among  his  friends 
to  place  him  on  the  pedestal  of  a  martyr.  He  refused  to 
pose  in  that  way.  The  numerous  rewards  offered  in  the 
South  for  the  abduction  of  leading  abolitionists  caused 

*  In  the  mobs  against  negroes  in  Northern  cities  many  lives  were 
sacrificed.  The  remarks  in  the  text  are  not  intended  to  apply  to  them  or 
to  the  fighting  in  Kansas. 


PRO-SLAVERY   MOBS.  253 

him  no  apprehension.  He  regarded  them  as  attempts  at 
intimidation  made  by  weak  men.  An  abduction,  he  argued, 
would  be  a  serious  blunder  on  the  part  of  the  slave  power, 
and  the  leaders  would  not  permit  it ;  nothing  would  have 
been  easier  than  to  seize  him  by  night  and  take  him  into 
Kentucky,  but  such  an  act  would  rouse  the  whole  North 
as  one  man.  All  he  could  possibly  apprehend  was  assassi 
nation,  perpetrated  by  some  slave-holding  zealot,  crazed  by 
drink  or  under  cover  of  some  mob  disturbance — an  act 
that  would  be  promptly  disclaimed  by  the  pro-slavery 
leaders  with  suitable  expressions  of  abhorrence. 

For  a  short  time  after  the  re-establishment  of  his 
paper  in  September,  1836,  he  exercised  some  caution  in 
exposing  himself  at  night ;  but  this  soon  ceased.  His 
temperament  did  not  make  him  susceptible  to  panic 
terrors. 

After  the  destruction  of  his  paper  in  July,  the  notices 
of  the  leading  papers  of  the  country  were  generally  kindly. 
We  have  room  for  two  only.  The  New  York  "  Evening 
Post "  said : 

He  is  a  man  of  great  ardor  and  resolution  of  character,  and  is 
not  likely  to  give  up  his  design  but  with  his  life.  .  .  .  His  ene 
mies  will  probably  find  that  nothing  short  of  murder  will  effect 
their  object. 

The  New  York  "  Journal  of  Commerce  "  said  : 

Judge  Birney's  paper  was  ably  conducted,  and,  although  an 
advocate  of  abolition,  was  managed  with  far  greater  moderation 
than  several  papers  at  the  East  we  could  mention  engaged  in  the 
same  cause.  Judge  Birney  himself  is  a  man  of  very  estimable 
character  and  possesses  talents  of  a  high  order. 

Webb,  of  the  "  Courier  and  Enquirer,"  was  character 
istically  truculent  and  coarse : 

They  are  a  poor  miserable  set  of  driveling  dastards  who  are 
as  bold  as  so  many  Parolles  at  a  distance  from  danger,  but  who 


254:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

always  run  into  the  shavings  *  like  William  Lloyd  Garrison  when 
their  own  poor  pates  are  in  danger. 

The  popular  reaction  against  the  mob  was  general 
through  the  North.  Mr.  Birney  wrote  in  November, 
"  The  great  majority  of  the  people  are  sound  on  free  dis 
cussion  and  a  free  press." 

After  the  October  elections,  the  Dayton  "  Republican," 
a  Whig  paper,  rejoiced  that  "  the  Whig  mobocrats  "  of  Cin 
cinnati  had  been  rebuked  "  at  the  polls.  Not  a  mother's 
son  of  the  whole  batch  of  Whig  candidates  in  Hamilton 
County  is  elected."  It  expressed  the  hope  that  "  leading 
and  influential  Whigs  "  would  not  again  act  as  "  mobbers." 

The  estimate  of  Mr.  Birney  in  1836  by  his  anti-slavery 
contemporaries  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  ex 
tracts  from  important  documents.  In  the  next  annual 
report  of  the  American  Aiiti- Slavery  Society  six  pages 
were  given  to  the  mobbing  of  the  "  Philanthropist."  Of 
that  paper  it  was  said  : 

Though  fully  and  unflinchingly  advocating  the  doctrines  of 
this  society,  it  could  never  be  reproached  for  want  of  forbearance 
or  courtesy  in  its  language.  Even  its  enemies  were  obliged  to 
concede  that  its  mode  of  conducting  the  discussion  was  unexcep 
tionable. 

The  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Convention  of  that 
year,  in  a  formal  resolution,  mentioned  Mr.  Birney  as  one 

*  This  allusion  to  Mr.  Garrison's  concealment  of  himself  in  a  car 
penter's  shop  from  the  Boston  mob  in  1835  is  inaccurate.  Mr.  Garrison, 
in  his  account  of  the  mob,  says :  "  We  then  went  up-stairs,  and,  finding 
a  vacancy  in  one  corner  of  the  room,  I  got  into  it  and  he  and  a  young 
lad  piled  up  some  boards  in  front  of  me  to  shield  me  from  observation." 
(See  his  "Life,"  ii,  20.)  In  1833  Mr.  Garrison  had  written  an  article 
beginning:  "To  the  charge  made  against  me  by  the  cowardly  ruffian 
who  conducts  the  *  Courier  and  Enquirer,'  and  by  the  miserable  liar  and 
murderous  hypocrite  of  the  New  York  'Commercial  Advertiser,'"  etc. 
(Garrison's  "  Life,"  ii,  387.) 


PRO-SLAVERY  MOBS.  255 

"  who  so  nobly  volunteers  to  jeopard  his  life  in  the  midst 
of  dangers  and  persecutions,"  and  declared  "  That  the 
convention  give  their  unqualified  approbation  to  that  dis 
tinguished  friend  of  the  slave,  James  G.  Birney,"  etc. 

The  New  York  Anti-Slavery  Society,  through  its  ex 
ecutive  committee,  published  an  address  of  sympathy  with 
its  Ohio  coadjutors.  In  this  it  said  : 

The  well-known  character  of  the  press  and  editor,  .  .  .  the 
universal  meed  of  approbation  for  candor,  courtesy,  and  kindness 
that  have  been  awarded  them  from  all  parties — from  opponents 
as  wrell  as  friends — enhances  in  no  small  degree  the  moral  force 
and  virtue  of  the  demonstration  that  has  been  made.  .  .  .  You 
are  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle.  .  .  .  Your  brethren  are  looking 
anxiously  toward  you. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

LIFE  IN  CINCINNATI. 

183G-1837. 

Soox  after  Mr.  Birney's  removal  to  Cincinnati  he  had 
been  made  a  member  of  the  executive  committee  of  the 
State  Anti-Slavery  Society.  As  he  possessed  the  entire 
confidence  of  his  associates  and  was  the  only  member  who 
gave  his  time  and  attention  to  the  common  cause,  the 
management  of  the  business  naturally  fell  into  his  hands. 
It  is  no  easy  matter  at  this  day  to  appreciate  the  delicacy 
of  his  varied  duties.  One  of  them  was  to  select  lecturers 
and  give  them  the  stamp  of  official  approval,  thus  indi 
rectly  discrediting  numerous  volunteer  speakers  who  were 
working  without  good  results  or  who  did  not  properly 
represent  the  anti-slavery  cause.  In  the  preceding  ten  years 
certain  zealous  anti-slavery  clergymen  had  wasted  much 
precious  time  in  expounding  the  true  meaning  of  doulos 
in  the  Bible,  and  expended  much  learning  on  slavery 
among  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  Moses  and  much  energy 
in  arguing  against  race  prejudice  as  a  sin,  as  if  such  a 
prejudice  had  ever  yielded  to  argument.  A  few  of  the 
speakers  were  eccentrics.  In  that  era  of  religious  and 
reformatory  excitement  and  new  ideas  of  progress,  mate 
rial  and  moral,  the  natural  drift  of  highly  emotional  per 
sons  of  ascetic  temperament  and  defective  logical  power 
was  into  abolitionism,  and  beyond  it  into  fads  and  whim- 
seys  without  end. 


LIFE  IN  CINCINNATI.  257 

When  fluency  of  declamation  and  the  vanity  of  notori 
ety  were  added  to  their  other  qualities  it  was  very  difficult 
to  keep  them  from  the  abolition  platform.  Lacking 
knowledge  of  history,  politics,  law,  and  the  Constitution, 
they  resorted  to  personalities,  abusive  epithets  against 
slave-holders,  the  Church,  and  the  national  Constitution, 
and  to  logical  inferences  from  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  and  the  Ee volution  of  1776  of  the  right  of 
slaves  to  rise  and  cut  their  masters'  throats,  thus  exasper 
ating  public  sentiment  against  the  abolition  cause  by  giv 
ing  prominence  to  false  or  collateral  and  unimportant 
issues  which  were  offensive  to  good  taste,  humanity,  and 
patriotism.  These  men  did  great  harm  to  the  abolition 
cause.  Some  of  them  were  eccentric  in  their  personal 
appearance.  One  believed  he  resembled  Christ,  and  wore 
long  hair  parted  in  the  middle  and  flowing  in  curls  over 
his  shoulders ;  another  sported  a  sombrero  hat  and  a  long 
beard  like  a  Mexican  bandit ;  and  a  third  wore  no  hat  at 
all.  Some  had  adopted  Dr.  Sylvester  Graham's  recently 
advanced  theories  of  living.  They  ate  coarse  bread  and 
fruits  but  no  meat,  drank  no  stimulants,  not  even  tea  and 
coffee,  and,  even  if  delicate,  took  cold  shower-baths  every 
morning,  winter  and  summer.  Some  abjured  marriage  ; 
others  thought  it  wrong  to  punish  or  even  restrain  chil 
dren.  One  anticipated  the  Christian  Scientists  of  the 
present  day.  He  was  becoming  perfect  like  Christ,  and 
expected  to  be  able  in  time  to  cure  disease  and  work 
miracles.  He  was  as  abstemious  as  an  Oriental  hermit. 
All  these  well-meaning  persons,  who  were  bringing  aboli 
tion  into  discredit  with  people  of  common  sense,  were 
quietly  and  tactfully  laid  aside  by  Mr.  Birney.  They 
were  not  invited  to  meetings  or  conventions,  and  if  they 
appeared  at  them  were  ignored.  He  believed  the  staff  of 
accomplishment  was  in  other  hands.  The  men  he  select 
ed  to  represent  the  cause  to  the  public  were  men  esteemed 


258  JAMES  G.  BIKNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

for  practical  ability,  integrity,  and  knowledge  of  public 
affairs.  They  were  Messrs.  Thome,  Streeter,  William  T. 
Allen,  of  Alabama,  Lyman,  "Weed,  Barber,  Timothy  Hud 
son,  and  Kev.  John  Rankin.  These  were  the  paid  lectur 
ers.  All  of  them  were  able  speakers  and  did  much  to  lay 
deep  and  broad  foundations  for  future  anti-slavery  action. 
He  adopted  a  system  of  appointing  as  local  lecturers  with 
out  pay  good  men  in  the  different  counties  of  the  State. 
On  this  list  wrere  such  men  as  Hon.  Thomas  Morris,  Rev. 
Henry  Cowles,  Albert  A.  Guthrie,  Rev.  James  H.  Dickey, 
Rev.  Dyer  Burgess,  and  Dr.  \V.  W.  Bancroft.  These  names 
are  given  from  memory.  There  were  many  others. 

As  a  result  of  this  systematic  effort  in  Ohio,  eighty 
anti-slavery  societies  were  formed  in  that  State  in  the 
twelve  months  beginning  with  May,  183 G.  In  Indiana, 
where  no  such  effort  was  made,  one  society  only  was 
formed  in  the  same  period. 

One  of  the  most  active  lecturers  in  Ohio  was  Mr.  Bir- 
ney  himself. 

The  "  Philanthropist "  contains  almost  weekly  an 
nouncements  of  his  engagements.  He  lectured  in  almost 
every  town  of  southwestern  Ohio  without  giving  occasion 
for  any  hostile  demonstrations  worthy  of  special  notice. 
At  Cummingsville  and  Fulton,  suburbs  of  Cincinnati,  he 
had  good  audiences.  At  Fulton  he  delivered  a  series  of 
lectures  in  the  Presbyterian  church  of  which  the  Rev. 
John  Dudley,  father  of  Colonel  W.  W.  Dudley,  of  Indi 
ana,  was  pastor.  Ko  other  church  in  Cincinnati  opened 
its  doors  to  him. 

Mr.  Birney  made  it  a  point  to  form  the  acquaintance 
of  editors  in  Ohio  whenever  occasion  served.  He  had 
personal  friends  among  them  in  all  parts  of  the  State, 
and  was  sure  of  a  kind  reception  in  their  respective  locali 
ties  if  they  could  secure  it  for  him.  His  social  relations 
embraced  a  great  variety  of  persons.  Among  the  guests 


LIFE  IX   CINCINNATI.  259 

who  enjoyed  his  hospitality  at  Cincinnati  were  Benjamin 
Lundy,  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy,  and  Rev.  Alexander  Campbell, 
an  extremely  able  controversialist  and  the  founder  of  the 
"  Church  of  the  Disciples."  Mr.  Campbell  had  a  public 
debate  with  Bishop  Purcell  on  the  interpretation  of  the 
prophecies,  in  which  he  attempted  to  prove  that  the  Ro 
man  Catholic  Church  was  the  "  scarlet  woman,"  and  also, 
as  well  as  I  recollect,  the  little  horn  of  the  beast  in  Daniel. 
I  had  the  honor  of  accompanying  Mr.  Campbell  and  my 
father  to  the  debate  on  one  of  the  evenings.  Mr.  Camp 
bell  and  Bishop  Purcell  were  very  learned  theologians, 
but  my  father  was  much  amused  with  the  debate,  and 
expressed  to  me  his  wonder  that  such  men  should  spend 
time  on  such  trivialities.  He  did  his  best  to  interest  Mr. 
Campbell  in  the  anti-slavery  cause,  but  with  little  success. 
He  accomplished  more  with  Bishop  Purcell,  whom  he  vis 
ited  repeatedly. 

About  this  time  a  learned  Jewish  rabbi  sought  to  in 
terest  Mr.  Birney  in  the  "  testimony  of  the  targums  "  in 
relation  to  slavery,  but  failed  to  impress  him  with  the 
practical  importance  of  that  branch  of  curious  learning. 
To  young  men  of  good  morals,  ability,  and  promise,  Mr. 
Birney  made  himself  agreeable,  seeking  to  win  them  to 
his  cause.  Among  these  were  the  lawyers  Samuel  Eells, 
John  Jolliffe,  and  Salmon  P.  Chase.  Mr.  Eells  died  in 
early  manhood ;  Mr.  Jolliffe  became  and  remained  through 
a  long  life  a  thorough  political-action  abolitionist ;  Mr. 
Chase,  afterward  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  Su 
preme  Court,  did  not  connect  himself  publicly  and  formal 
ly  with  the  anti-slavery  movement  until  he  joined  the 
Liberty  party  in  1841,  but  he  adopted  Mr.  Birney's  legal 
and  constitutional  opinions  on  slavery  in  1836.  His  con 
version  was  not  rapid.  The  acquaintance  growing  out  of 
the  ordinary  relation  of  lawyer  and  client  became  one  of 
personal  friendship  and  intimacy  in  the  autumn  of  1835, 


260  JAMES  G.  BIHNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

and  continued  on  that  footing.  Mr.  Chase  spent  many  of 
his  evenings  in  my  father's  library,  and  I  was  present  on 
most  of  these  occasions.  As  I  remember  the  conversa 
tions,  they  turned  chiefly  on  the  legal  aspects  of  slavery. 
Mr.  Chase  was  my  father's  junior  by  sixteen  years,  and, 
although  a  good  practitioner,  had  made  no  special  study 
of  slavery.  He  was  a  most  attentive  listener.  I  have  a 
vivid  remembrance  of  my  father's  vindication  of  a  de 
cision  by  Justice  Hornblower,  of  New  Jersey,  that  a  per 
son  claimed  in  one  State  as  a  fugitive  slave  from  another 
had  a  right  to  a  trial  by  jury  ;  and  of  one  by  Justice  Shaw, 
of  Massachusetts,  that  a  slave  taken  into  a  free  State  by 
the  master  becomes  free.  His  arguments  were  as  elabo 
rate  as  if  made  to  a  court,  and  were  illustrated  by  cases 
read  from  books  taken  from  the  library  shelves.*  They 
were  impressed  upon  my  memory  by  the  reproduction  of 
them  by  Mr.  Chase  in  his  argument,  in  March,  1837,  in 
what  is  known  as  the  case  of  the  girl  Matilda  Lawrence, 
claimed  as  a  slave,  and  the  elaboration  of  them  in  my 
father's  subsequent  defense  of  himself  when  indicted  un 
der  the  "  Ohio  black  laws  "  for  harboring  her.  It  was  my 
good  fortune  to  hear  both  of  these  arguments,  so  noted  in 
their  day ;  and  it  derogates  nothing  from  the  future  Chief 
Justice  that  James  G.  Birney  was  his  first  and  only  in 
structor  in  anti-slavery  law.  Mr.  Chase  did  not  abandon 
the  Whig  party  until  1841,  but  from  that  time  cordially 

*  In  his  eloquent  funeral  oration  on  Chief-Justice  Chase,  Judge  Iload- 
ley  dates  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Chase's  anti-slavery  action  in  1829-'30, 
while  he  was  teaching  school  in  Washington  city.  This  is  a  mistake. 
I  knew  Mr.  Chase  intimately  from  1841  to  1848,  and  he  never  alluded  to 
such  early  action.  I  have  also  inquired  closely  into  his  life  in  Washing 
ton  in  1829-'30,  and  find  no  evidence  tending  to  sustain  Judge  Iloadley. 
The  facts  that  he  spent  a  vacation  in  Virginia  as  a  guest  of  slave 
holders,  and  that  his  pupils  were  nearly  all  sons  of  slave-holders,  are 
inconsistent  with  the  assertion  that  at  that  time  he  was  an  active  abo 
litionist. 


LIFE  IN  CINCINNATI.  261 

supported  Mr.  Birney  as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
taking  a  very  active  part  in  the  campaign  of  1844. 

The  case  of  Matilda  Lawrence  illustrates  the  extent  to 
which  the  great  property  interest  of  slavery,  though  alien 
to  the  spirit  of  republican  institutions  was  able  to  over 
bear  the  common  sentiments  of  humanity  and  chivalry, 
the  principles  of  law,  and  the  Constitutions  of  Ohio  and 
of  the  United  States.  Her  father,  a  resident  of  southern 
Missouri,  was  a  rich  planter.  He  was  an  elderly  man,  un 
married,  and  a  testy  invalid.  His  daughter,  an  octoroon, 
had  been  brought  up  in  his  house  as  his  servant  and  de 
pendent.  At  sixteen  she  lost  her  mother  and  succeeded 
her  as  housekeeper.  At  twenty  she  was  a  beautiful  bru 
nette.  There  was  nothing  in  her  personal  appearance  to 
excite  suspicion  of  the  fatal  taint  in  her  blood,  but  her 
origin  was  known  in  the  county  of  her  residence,  and  she 
was  not  admitted  to  the  society  of  the  white  people  in  the 
neighborhood.  Her  father  forbade  her  to  associate  with 
the  blacks.  She  belonged  to  neither  race.  For  four  years 
she  lived  in  isolation.  She  had  learned  to  read,  and  her 
chief  solace  was  in  poring  over  the  few  books  in  her 
father's  library.  In  the  winter  of  1836  he  decided  to  spend 
a  year  in  New  York  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  eminent 
physicians.  Being  unwilling  to  lose  her  services  as  his 
nurse  and  attendant,  or  to  meet  the  many  inconveniences 
inseparable  from  her  going  with  him  as  his  servant,  he 
determined  to  take  her  with  him  and  represent  her  as  his 
daughter.  He  was  rich  enough  to  disregard  the  additional 
expense,  and  cynical  enough  to  enjoy  the  mystification. 
Her  neat  apparel,  quiet  manners,  and  apparent  intelligence 
caused  his  representations  to  pass  without  question ;  she 
was  received  at  hotels  with  the  respect  due  to  the  daughter 
of  a  wealthy  Southern  gentleman.  Her  remarkable  beauty 
attracted  admirers,  her  pensiveness  and  modesty  being 
additional  charms.  In  these  unusual  circumstances  her 


262  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

intelligence  developed  rapidly.  She  availed  herself  of 
opportunities  to  learn  what  she  might  about  the  rights  of 
individuals  at  the  North.  She  was  a  woman,  and  no  doubt 
conscious  of  the  newly  discovered  power  of  her  beauty. 
She  began  to  chafe  at  her  servile  condition  and  false  posi 
tion,  and  to  importune  her  father  to  set  her  free.  She 
begged  not  to  be  taken  back  to  Missouri  and  the  isolation 
of  plantation  life,  with  the  dreary  prospect  of  the  auction 
block  at  her  father's  death.  Mr.  Lawrence,  alarmed  at 
this  unexpected  result  cf  his  freak,  and  unwilling  to  grant 
her  request,  lost  no  time  in  starting  for  Missouri.  Arriv 
ing  in  Cincinnati,  he  stopped  at  a  hotel  near  the  wharf, 
intending  to  take  passage  on  the  first  steamboat  bound  for 
St.  Louis.  After  a  vain  effort  to  persuade  him  to  give  her 
"  free  papers,"  in  which  case  she  promised  to  go  with  him 
and  serve  him  faithfully,  she  left  the  hotel  and  found  a 
refuge  in  the  house  of  a  colored  barber  who  was  well 
known  as  a  friend  of  the  unfortunate  of  his  race.  This 
was  in  May,  1836.  A  few  days  later  Mr.  Lawrence  left 
for  St.  Louis.  It  is  quite  doubtful  whether  he  authorized 
the  proceedings  for  seizure  taken  in  the  following  March 
in  his  name  by  one  John  W.  Riley,  a  notorious  negro 
hunter  and  kidnapper,  no  proof  of  authority  having  been 
submitted,  except  the  affidavit  of  Riley  himself. 

After  remaining  a  few  days  in  concealment,  Matilda 
Lawrence  obtained  employment  as  a  servant  in  a  white 
family  and,  in  the  following  October,  was  engaged  by  my 
mother  as  chambermaid  and  nurse.  She  was  a  modest, 
industrious  girl,  of  respectful  manners  and  affectionate 
disposition,  and  in  a  short  time  became  a  favorite  with  my 
mother  and  the  children.  .  We  thought  her  white.  She 
was  reticent  in  regard  to  her  past  life.  She  told  us  that 
she  was  born  in  Missouri,  that  her  family  and  relatives 
lived  there  but  were  too  poor  to  help  her,  that  her  mother 
was  dead,  and  she  did  not  wish  to  live  with  her  father  and 


LIFE  IN  CINCINNATI.  263 

would  rather  not  say  why,  and  was  happy  to  be  able  to  gain 
her  own  living.  During  the  five  months  of  her  stay  with  us 
she  gained  the  esteem  of  all  the  members  of  the  family. 

Early  in  March,  having  gone  into  the  street  on  some 
errand,  she  came  rushing  back,  pale  and  trembling  with 
fright,  and  begged  my  mother  to  save  her  from  being  seized 
as  a  slave.  A  man  she  had  never  seen  had  spoken  to  her 
roughly,  charging  her  with  being  a  runaway  negro  slave. 
Then  came  the  pitiful  story  in  all  its  details,  the  story  of 
a  friendless  woman  hunted  to  her  hiding  place.  My  father 
was  absent  from  home  at  the  time  of  the  above  occurrence, 
but  was  told  all  the  facts  on  his  return  next  day.  They  gave 
him  great  concern.  While  he  knew  she  was  free,  having 
been  taken  by  her  master  into  a  free  State,  he  had  little 
faith  in  the  even  poise  of  the  scales  of  justice  when  they 
were  held  by  appointees  of  the  slave  power.*  He  therefore 
advised  that  Matilda  Lawrence  should  secrete  herself  from 
pursuit  for  the  present  and  until  she  could  reach  the  home 
of  one  of  his  friends  in  western  New  York.  The  house 
was  watched  constantly,  however,  by  Riley  and  his  men. 
Matilda  was  seized,  March  10th,  on  a  warrant  issued 
by  one  Doty;,  a  justice,  acting  under  color  of  the  law 
of  1793,  since  pronounced  unconstitutional  by  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Chase,  who  had 
been  retained  by  Mr.  Birney  for  the  purpose,  applied 
to  Judge  D.  K.  Este  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  The 
writ  was  issued  by  William  Henry  Harrison,  then  clerk  of 
the  Common  Pleas  Court.  Judge  Este  was  a  silver-gray 
Whig,  whose  strongest  sentiments  were  consciousness  of 
his  own  supreme  respectability  and  veneration  for  the 

*  That  slavery  can  have  no  legal  existence  outside  of  the  territory  of 
the  State  that  sanctions  it  or  in  the  territory  of  the  State  that  interdicts 
it  had  been  decided  in  England  (Somerset's  case),  in  Massachusetts,  in 
Louisiana  (Lunsford's  case,  14  Martin),  and  in  Kentucky  (Rankin's  case, 
3  Marshall). 


264:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

claims  of  slave-holders.  The  attorneys  for  Riley  were  three 
leading  Democrats — M.  N.  McLean,  Gen.  Lytle,  and  N. 
C.  Read.  The  learned  and  able  argument  of  Mr.  Chase 
was  heard  by  Este  with  the  ostentatious  courtesy  of  a 
judge  who  had  already  made  up  his  mind.  The  refusal 
to  discharge  was  from  the  first  a  foregone  conclusion.  As 
soon  as  it  was  pronounced  by  the  judge,  the  young  girl, 
sobbing  in  her  terror,  was  seized  by  three  stout  hired 
ruffians,  hurried  through  the  crowd,  placed  in  a  carriage 
in  waiting,  driven  rapidly  to  the  wharf,  and  taken  by  ferry 
boat  to  Covington,  where  she  was  put  in  jail  for  safe  keep 
ing.  The  same  night  she  was  transferred  to  a  steamboat 
bound  to  New  Orleans.  There  she  was  sold  at  public  auc 
tion  to  the  highest  bidder.  What  became  of  her  afterward 
was  never  known.  The  price  she  brought  was  large,  and, 
rumor  said,  was  divided  equally  between  the  kidnapper 
and  his  three  attorneys.  None  of  the  blood  money  was 
offered  to  Judge  Este,  who  performed  his  part  of  this 
crime  against  humanity  and  law  without  fee  or  reward 
and  with  perfect  decorum ;  and,  probably,  none  of  it  went 
into  the  hands  of  the  father.  In  sending  this  hapless  girl 
to  a  fate  worse  than  death,  the  judge  disregarded  all  laws 
human  and  divine.  He  presumed  that  she  was  a  colored 
person  when  the  law  of  Ohio  declared  white  all  persons  of 
more  white  blood  than  a  mulatto ;  that  she  was  a  slave, 
though  the  Ohio  Constitution  and  the  Ordinance  of  1787 
prohibited  the  existence  of  slavery  within  the  State  limits ; 
that  she  was  a  slave  who  had  escaped  from  Missouri  into 
Ohio,  though  the  evidence  proved  the  contrary ;  and  that 
Riley  represented  her  former  owner,  though  there  was  no 
proof  of  this  except  Riley's  own  oath.*  But  in  that  era 

*  Judge  Caldwcll,  the  Democratic  successor  of  Judge  Este,  admin 
istered  the  law  as  it  was.  In  several  cases,  brought  before  him  between 
1842  and  1848,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  issue  certificates  of  freedom  to 
slaves  brought  into  Ohio  by  their  masters. 


LIFE  IN   CINCINNATI.  265 

of  political  subserviency  to  the  slave  power  it  was  not  un 
common  that  a  judge  should  facilitate  the  operations  of 
professional  kidnappers. 

Matilda  Lawrence  having  been  judicially  declared  a 
slave,  the  next  step  of  Mr.  Birney's  political  enemies, 
headed  by  Lytle  and  Eead,  was  to  procure  an  indictment 
against  him  for  harboring  her.  This  was  tried  before 
Judge  Este.  The  writer  was  subpoenaed  and  examined 
as  a  witness  against  his  father,  proving  the  facts  sub 
stantially  as  above  narrated.  The  court-house  was 
crowded.  The  accused  spoke  about  three  hours  in  his 
own  defense,  admitting  the  facts,  and  maintaining  that 
Matilda  Lawrence  was  in  law  a  free  woman.  His  argu 
ment  made  many  converts,  especially  among  the  younger 
members  of  the  bar.  Judge  Este  attempted  to  answer  it  in 
his  charge,  and  came  as  nearly  as  possible  to  directing  the 
verdict  of  guilty.  On  appeal,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio 
quashed  the  indictment  as  defective.  The  majority  of  the 
judges  would  have  decided  the  case  for  the  defendant^on 
his  exceptions,  if  that  course  had  been  necessary.  Chief- 
Justice  Hitchcock  was  well  known  to  indorse  cordially  the 
propositions  of  law  made  by  Mr.  Birney  in  the  case.  He  was 
an  old-time  abolitionist  and  a  good  lawyer,  and  possessed 
uncommon  independence  of  character. 

Thus  failed  the  last  great  effort  of  the  politicians  to 
crush  Mr.  Birney  at  Cincinnati.  It  was  noticeable  that 
the  political  dailies  of  the  city,  except  the  "  Gazette," 
set  on  and  incited  the  persecution  against  him,  but  not 
one  of  them  was  shameless  enough  to  approve  the  seiz 
ure  of  the  unfortunate  woman.  The  sympathy  excited 
by  this  case  throughout  the  Korth  was  one  of  the  potent 
causes  of  the  passage  by  free- State  legislatures  of  "  per 
sonal-liberty  laws,"  designed  to  secure  the  right  of  trial 
by  jury  to  every  person  claimed  as  a  slave,  and  to  punish 
as  kidnappers  all  persons  aiding  or  abetting  in  delivering 

13 


266  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

as  a  slave  any  person  not  proved  to  have  escaped  from  a 
slave  into  a  free  State.  To  aid  in  procuring  such  laws, 
Mr.  Birney  printed  a  large  edition  of  a  pamphlet  contain 
ing  Mr.  Chase's  argument,  and  distributed  it  among  law 
yers  and  members  of  legislatures. 

About  the  1st  of  May,  1837,  he  went  to  Xew  York  to 
attend  the  fourth  anniversary  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  and  to  seek  to  harmonize  leading  anti- 
slavery  men  on  important  doctrines  and  methods  of  work. 
From  the  outset  of  hi?  public  career,  he  had  been  in  favoi 
of  using  "  all  lawful  means  "  to  accomplish  the  restriction 
and  final  extinction  of  slavery.  In  the  first  number  of  hit 
paper  he  had  spoken  slightingly  of  those  non-voting  abo 
litionists  "  who  think  to  accomplish  the  end  without  using 
the  means."  He  had  steadily  maintained  the  duty  of  po 
litical  action.  December  30,  183G,  he  wrote  as  editor  : 

Slavery  in  the  District  and  Territories  and  the  domestic  slave 
trade  are  under  the  control  of  political  action;  by  political  act  ion 
alone  can  they  be  terminated.  .  .  .  non-interference  would  be 
criminal. 

His  patience  was  severely  tried  by  men  who  professed 
to  be  abolitionists  but  continued  to  vote  for  their  old  par 
ties,  or  who  refused  to  vote  at  all,  preferring  to  "  entreat  v 
Whigs  and  Democrats  for  abolition  measures,  or  to  peti 
tion  Congress  for  them,  or  to  indulge  in  wordy  denunci 
ations  of  men  and  things.  Such  abolitionists,  he  thought, 
were  brambles  without  fruit;  a  million  of  them  would 
effect  nothing.  They  fought  like  a  Chinese  army,  rattling 
tin  pans  to  frighten  the  enemy.  He  regarded  diffusion  of 
information,  promotion  of  discussion,  and  formation  oC 
public  opinion  against  slavery  as  the  proper  functions  oL' 
voluntary  anti-slavery  societies ;  while,  from  their  very  na 
ture,  they  were  not  adapted  to  organize  practical  political 
movements.  It  was  wrong  in  such  societies  to  throw  their 


LIFE  IX  CINCINNATI.  267 

influence  against  any  lawful  means  of  resisting  the  slave 
power.  To  obtain  for  some  of  his  views  on  kindred  sub 
jects  the  indorsement  of  the  executive  committee,  he 
wrote  for  the  "Annual  Report  of  1837  "  the  first  para 
graph  of  the  part  of  that  report  headed  "  Political  Ac 
tion  "  (see  page  113).  The  following  sentences  condense 
his  views : 

Our  immediatism  has  led  us  to  appeal  to  that  religion  which 
will  go  immediately  to  work  by  all  lawful  and  right  means,  trust 
ing  that  it  will  enlarge  and  deepen  itself  by  its  own  action.  .  .  . 
The  opinions  and  feelings  of  the  people  will  not  be  felt  in  their 
legislatures  till  some  effort  is  made  to  carry  them  them  there.  .  .  . 
That  sympathy  for  the  oppressed  which  does  not,  from  the  in 
stant  of  its  birth,  operate  to  reform  and  purify  the  abused  and 
perverted  law  is  thrown  away,  etc.  .  .  .  Political  action  there 
must  be.  ...  That  religion  which  makes  a  man  shrink  from  his 
political  responsibilities  when  the  foundation  principles  of  justice 
are  to  be  brought  to  their  position  in  the  structure  of  human  so 
ciety — when  the  liberties  of  millions  are  at  stake — will  not,  we 
are  constrained  to  believe,  prove  a  support  to  the  soul  when  God 
shall  ask,  Where  is  thy  brother  ? 

This  was  too  strong  a  stroke  at  the  non- voting  abo 
litionists.  The  executive  committee  dulled  its  edge  by 
inserting  after  the  above  passage  the  advice  to  abolition 
ists  :  "  While  they  firmly  refuse  to  vote  for  a  man  who 
will  not  support  abolition  measures  to  avoid  setting  up 
candidates  of  their  own."  This  solecism  in  the  reports 
reveals  the  want  of  harmony  then  existing  among  anti- 
slavery  leaders. 

The  weak  advice  of  the  committee  implied  that  no 
abolitionist  was  fit  to  hold  office,  and  was  based  upon  an 
opinion  widely  prevalent  among  religious  men  of  that  day 
of  the  inherent  depravity  of  all  attempts  by  citizens  to 
elect  to  office  men  who  agreed  with  them  in  politics. 

Administration  of  government  was  to  be  abandoned  to 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

political  enemies  in  the  hope  that  they  would  not  act  and 
legislate  on  their  own  views  ! 

Mr.  Birney  was  treated  with  great  respect  by  his  fellow- 
members.  He  presided  at  three  of  the  seven  business 
meetings,  Gerrit  Smith  presiding  at  two  others,  and  made 
the  leading  speech  at  the  public  anniversary  meeting.  He 
availed  himself  of  the  occasion  to  place  himself  publicly 
on  record  as  in  favor  of  "  all  lawful  means."  He  said  : 

There  is  now  a  large  and  rapidly  increasing  number  of  the 
most  estimable,  patriotic,  and  intelligent  of  our  countrymen  who. 
agreeing  on  the  evils  of  slavery,  on  ...  the  danger  with  which 
they  threaten  all  that  is  valuable  and  worthy  to  be  cherished 
among  us — freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  the  right  to  in 
vestigate  truth,  to  publish  its  results,  and  to  act  consistently  with 
them — aye,  the  Government,  liberty,  and  religion  itself — who, 
thus  agreeing,  are  resolved,  before  it  be  too  late,  to  act  ty  all 
lawful  means,  for  the  removal  of  these  evils. 

In  this  speech  he  declared  that  the  Colonization  Soci 
ety,  though  wrong  in  principle,  had  been  a  step  in  the 
necessary  evolution  of  anti-slavery  opinion.  He  demon 
strated  also  the  impolicy  of  gradual  emancipation  of  slaves 
in  the  Gulf  States  by  showing  that  freedmen  in  large 
numbers  could  not  be  employed  as  laborers  by  the  side  of 
slaves. 

He  was  elected  the  Ohio  vice-president  of  the  society. 
After  a  short  lecturing  tour  in  Xew  York  and  the  Xew 
England  States  he  returned  home. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 
THE  NO-GOVERNMENT  VAGARY. 

IN  his  visit  to  New  York  and  New  England,  in  May 
and  June,  1837,  Mr.  Birney's  chief  object  had  been  to 
restore  harmony  among  anti-slavery  leaders  on  doctrines 
and  measures  and  especially  to  check  a  tendency,  already 
marked  in  Massachusetts,  to  burden  the  cause  with  irrele 
vant  reforms,  real  or  supposed.  "With  this  view  he  had 
attended  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Convention  held 
at  Boston,  May  30  to  June  2,  inclusive,  accepted  the  posi 
tion  of  one  of  its  vice-presidents  and  acted  as  a  member  of 
its  committee  on  business.  Rev.  Henry  C.  Wright,  the 
leader  of  the  No  Human  Government,  Woman's  Rights, 
and  Moral  Reform  factions,  was  a  member  of  the  conven 
tion,  but  received  no  appointment  on  any  committee.  Mr. 
Garrison,  who  had  adopted  the  new  theories  of  Mr.  Wright, 
was  a  member  of  the  committee  on  business.*  But  neither 
of  these  gentlemen  brought  their  peculiar  views  before  the 
convention  in  any  offensive  manner.  Mr.  Garrison,  to 
whom  the  duty  had  been  assigned  by  the  business  com 
mittee,  advocated  resolutions  calling  upon  statesmen, 
political  parties,  and  legislatures  to  oppose  the  admission 
of  Texas  to  the  Union,  and  recommending  measures  to 
secure  the  votes  of  Congressmen  against  such  admission. 
In  his  speech  he  advised  the  people  of  the  non-slave-hold- 

*  This  was  the  first  and  only  time  Mr.  Birney  was  ever  brought  into 
any  personal  intimacy  with  Mr.  Garrison. 


270  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ing  States  to  "  unite  tlieir  entire  political  strength "  in 
opposition  to  Texas  annexation.  This  language  was  incon 
sistent  with  the  "  no  human  government "  notions  then 
held  by  Mr.  Garrison,  and  created  the  belief  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Birney  that  Mr.  Garrison  would  not  use  his 
newly  adopted  vagaries  to  the  injury  of  the  abolition  cause. 
He  returned  to  Cincinnati  confident  that  harmony  in  Ke\v 
England  would  be  maintained.  His  confidence  was,  how 
ever,  of  brief  duration. 

Exciting  events  occurred  in  New  England  in  rapid  suc 
cession.  June  23,  the  "  Liberator "  denounced  human 
governments.  July  4,  Mr.  Garrison,  in  a  speech  at  Prov 
idence,  spoke,  as  if  approvingly,  of  the  overthrow  of  the 
nation,  the  dismemberment  of  the  Union,  and  the  dashing 
in  pieces  of  the  Church.  July  15,  an  association  of  Con 
gregational  ministers  issued  a  "pastoral  letter"  against 
the  new  doctrines.  August  2,  five  clergymen,  claiming  to 
represent  nine  tenths  of  the  abolitionists  of  Massachusetts, 
published  an  "  appeal  "  which  was  directed  more  especially 
against  the  course  of  the  "Liberator."  August  3,  the 
abolitionists  of  the  Andover  Theological  Seminary  issued 
a  similar  appeal.  Among  the  complaints  were  some  against 
"speculations  which  lead  inevitably  to  disorganization, 
anarchy,  unsettling  the  domestic  economy,  removing  the 
landmarks  of  society,  and  unhinging  the  machinery  of 
Government."  About  the  same  time  a  new  anti-slavery 
society  at  Bangor  passed  the  following  : 

Resolved,  That  while  we  admit  and  maintain  the  right  of  free 
and  full  discussion  of  all  subjects,  yet,  in  our  judgment,  indi 
viduals  rejecting  the  authority  of  civil  and  parental  governments 
ought  not  to  be  employed  as  agents  and  lecturers  in  promoting 
the  cause  of  emancipation. 

August  17th,  the  Eev.  J.  T.  Woodbury,  of  Acton,  pub 
lished  a  letter  in  which  he  said : 


THE  NO-GOVERNMENT  VAGARY.  271 

I  am  an  abolitionist  and  I  am  so  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the 
term,  but  I  never  swallowed  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  I  never 
tried  to  swallow  him.  ...  I  have  seen,  as  I  think,  in  Mr.  Gar 
rison  a  decided  wish,  nay,  a  firm  resolve,  in  laboring  to  overthrow 
slavery  to  overthrow  the  Christian  Sabbath  and  the  Christian 
ministry.  His  doctrine  is  that  every  day  is  a  Sabbath  and  every 
man  his  own  minister.  There  are  no  Christian  ordinances,  there 
is  no  visible  Church.  Here  I  would  add  also  the  notion  of  his 
that  the  people  have  no  right  under  God  to  frame  a  government 
of  laws  to  protect  themselves  against  those  who  would  injure 
them,  and  that  man  can  apply  physical  force  to  man  rightfully 
under  no  circumstances,  and  not  even  the  parent  can  apply  the 
rod  to  the  child  and  not  be  in  the  sight  of  God  a  trespasser  and 
a  tyrant.  .  .  .  Good  men  say  we  are  abolitionists  and  would  go 
with  you  most  heartily  if  your  lecturers  and  writers  did  not  at 
tack  the  Sabbath  and  the  Christian  ministry  and  the  churches 
and  all  civil  and  family  government.  .  .  .  We  are  not  willing, 
for  the  sake  of  killing  the  rats,  to  burn  down  the  house  with  all 
it  contains. 

August  14th,  the  Quaker  poet  Whittier  wrote  to  the 
sisters  Grimke  : 

I  am  anxious,  too,  to  hold  a  long  conversation  with  you  on 
the  subject  of  war,  human  government,  and  church  and  family 
government.  The  more  I  reflect  upon  the  subject  the  more  diffi 
culty  I  find  and  the  more  decidedly  am  I  of  opinion  that  we 
ought  to  hold  all  these  matters  aloof  from  the  cause  of  abolition. 
Our  good  friend  H.  C.  Wright,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the 
world,  is  doing  great  injury  by  a  different  course.  He  is  making 
the  anti-slavery  party  responsible  in  a  great  degree  for  his,  to 
say  the  least,  startling  opinions.  .  .  .  But  let  him  keep  them  dis 
tinct  from  the  cause  of  emancipation.  This  is  his  duty.  .  .  .  To 
employ  an  agent  who  devotes  half  his  time  and  talents  to  the 
propagation  of  "no  human  or  no  family  government"  doctrines 
in  connection — intimate  connection—  with  the  doctrines  of  aboli 
tion  is  a  fraud  upon  the  patrons  of  the  cause.  Brother  Garrison 
errs,  I  think,  in  this  respect.  He  takes  the  ano  church  and  no 
human  government  "  ground,  as,  for  instance,  in  his  Providence 
speech.  Xow  in  his  prospectus  he  engaged  to  give  his  subscrib- 


272  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

ers  an  anti-slavery  paper,  and  his  subscribers  made  their  contract 
•with  him  on  that  ground.  If  he  fills  his  paper  with  Grahamism 
and  no  govermnentism  he  defrauds  his  subscribers.* 

To  the  vigorous  protests  against  the  course  of  the 
"  Liberator,"  Oliver  Johnson,  the  temporary  editor,  made 
a  caustic  answer,  and  Mr.  Garrison  treated  them  as  "  sedi 
tion,"  and  "  rebuked  "  and  "  chastised  "  the  authors.  In 
his  efforts  to  suppress  the  "  sedition,"  Mr.  Garrison  wrote  to 
New  York,  demanding  the  aid  of  the  executive  commit 
tee  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  He  wanted  a 
manifesto  from  that  body  crushing  the  dissenters,  thought 
it  could  not  fairly  stand  aloof,  and  that  silence  on  its  part 
was  not  magnanimous.  His  devoted  follower,  Maria  AV. 
Chapman,  was  aggressive  and  menacing.  She  wrote  to  a 
friend  in  New  York  in  the  peculiar  style  affected  by  her : 

If  the  executive  of  the  National  should  yield!  I  pray  God 
that  I  may  "not  be  unduly  suspicious;  but,  I  beseech  you,  call  it 
a  virtuous  sin  if  I  do  say  that  I  suspect  them.  .  .  .  Why  will 
they  think  they  can  cut  away  from  Garrison  without  becoming 
an  abomination  ?  .  .  .  I  pray  they  may  not  fall  to  confessing 
Garrison's  sins.  ...  If  this  defection  should  drink  the  cup  and 
end  all,  we  of  Massachusetts  will  turn  and  abolish  them  as  readily 
as  we  would  the  Colonization  Society. 

The  National  Committee  refused  to  take  part  in  the 
Massachusetts  quarrel.  Its  reasons  for  this  course  arc- 
given  in  a  letter  from  Lewis  Tappan,  published  in  full  in 
Garrison's  "  Life  "  by  his  sons.  (See  Garrison,  i,  1(5,3.)  In 
the  kindest  language,  Mr.  Tappan  expressed  his  disappro 
bation  of  the  "  appeal "  and  of  the  spirit  in  which  it  had 
been  met  by  Oliver  Johnson  and  Mr.  Garrison,  and  the 
opinion  that  "  principles  and  feelings  are  at  work  in  Mas 
sachusetts  in  the  abolition  ranks  that  are  unknown  else 
where,"  that  the  discussion  of  the  Sabbath  question  was 

*  Sec  "  Grimke  Sisters,"  p.  203. 


THE  XO-GOVERXMEXT  VAGARY.  273 

injudicious,  and  the  doctrines  on  national  and  family  gov 
ernment  wrong. 

Other  members  of  the  National  Committee  expressed 
themselves  with  equal  frankness.  Elizur  Wright  wrote  to 
Garrison : 

I  could  have  wished,  yes,  I  have  wished  from  the  bottom  of 
my  soul,  that  you  could  conduct  that  dear  paper,  the  ' '  Libera 
tor,  "  in  the  singleness  of  purpose  of  its  first  years.  .  .  .  without 
broaching  sentiments  which  are  novel  and  shocking  to  the  com 
munity.  ...  I  can  not  but  regard  the  taking  hold  of  one  great 
moral  enterprise  while  another  is  in  hand  and  but  half  achieved 
as  an  outrage  upon  common  sense,  somewhat  like  that  of  the 
dog  crossing  the  river  with  his  meat.  ...  To  tell  the  plain 
truth,  I  look  upon  your  notions  of  government  and  religious  per 
fection  as  downright  fanaticism,  as  harmless  as  they  are  absurd. 
.  .  .  My  heart  sickens  over  your  letter  to  Woodbury.  .  .  .  You 
meet  him  in  a  way  which  my  whole  soul  tells  me  is  sinful.  You 
exalt  yourself  too  much.  .  .  .  I  am  as  confident  as  of  my  exist 
ence  that  a  few  more  such  letters  would  open  a  bottomless  gulf 
of  distrust  between  you  and  the  abolitionists.  .  .  .  Let  the  Sabbath 
and  the  theoretic  theology  of  the  priesthood  alone  for  the  pres 
ent.  .  .  .  Let  the  Government  alone  till,  such  as  it  is,  all  are 
equally  protected  by  it.  ...  But,  if  all  this  can  not  be  done, 
why  come  out  plainly  and  say  you  have  left  the  old  track  and 
are  started  on  a  new  one,  or  rather  two  or  three  new  ones  at 
once. 

At  a  later  date  Elizur  Wright  wrote  to  Mr.  Phelps  : 

I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  Garrison  which  confirms  my 
fears  that  he  has  finished  his  course  for  the  slave.  At  any  rate, 
his  plan  of  rescuing  the  slave  by  the  destruction  of  human  laws 
is  fatally  conflictive  with  ours.  (Garrison,  ii,  169.) 

Theodore  D.  Weld  uttered  his  protest  against  the  new 
doctrines : 

If  you  adopt  the  views  of  H.  C.  Wright  .  .  .  why,  then,  we 
are  in  one  point  of  doctrine  just  as  wide  asunder  as  extremes  can 
be.  ...  When  the  devil  is  hard  pushed  and  likely  to  be  run 


274  JAMES  G.  BI11NEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

down  in  the  chase,  it  is  an  old  trick  of  his  to  start  some  smaller 
game,  and  thus  cause  his  pursuers  to  strike  off  from  his  own  track 
on  to  that  of  one  of  his  imps. 

And  again : 

Every  reform  that  ever  foundered  in  mid-sea  was  capsized 
by  one  of  these  gusty  side  winds.  (Grirnke  Sisters,  p.  209-212.) 

August  24,  Gerrit  Smith  wrote  to  William  Goodell : 

I  am  glad  to  see,  by  the  "Friend  of  Man,"  that  you  have  laid 
your  hand  on  one  of  H.  C.  Wright's  extravagances.  ...  I  see  no 
way  for  quitting  the  old  team. 

September  1,  II.  B.  Stanton  wrote  to  the  same 
editor  : 

I  am  glad  to  see  that  you  have  criticised  Brother  II.  C.  Wright. 
I  have  just  returned  from  a  month's  tour  in  eastern  Massachusetts, 
and  he  has  done  immense  hurt  there.  Plain,  yet  kind  reproofs 
from  your  pen  will  do  great  good.  .  .  .  And  such  remarks  and 
disclaimers  are  much  needed  now,  and  we  owe  them  to  the  com 
munity  and  the  cause.  You  see  that  everybody — Tray,  Sweetheart, 
etc.  — is  seizing  hold  of  II.  C.  Wright's  notions  to  injure  our  pre 
cious  cause.  .  .  .  No  harm,  I  think,  will  come  out  of  the  Eastern 
schism,  though  the  defection  is  widespread. 

The  apprehensions  felt  by  A.  A.  Phelps,  the  able  gen 
eral  agent  of  the  Massachusetts  A.  S.  Society,  were  ex 
pressed  in  several  letters  written  in  August  and  September, 
and  also  in  one  from  Boston,  dated  October  20.  I  quote 
from  the  last : 

I  write  you  this  in  great  grief  and  yet  I  feel  constrained  to  do 
it.  The  cause  of  abolition  here  was  never  in  so  dangerous  and 
critical  a  position  before.  Mutual  jealousies  on  the  part  of  the  laity 
and  clergy  are  rampant ;  indeed,  so  much  so  on  the  part  of  some  of 
our  lay  brethren  that,  let  a  clerical  brother  do  what  he  will,  it  is 
resolved  as  a  matter  of  course  into  some  sinister  motive.  If  he- 
goes  with  us  it  is  because  it  is  popular,  or  something  of  the  kind ; 
if  he  opposes  us,  his  salary  or  something  of  the  kind  is  the  reason : 


THE  NO-GO  VERXMENT  VAGARY.  275 

and  if  he  opposes  any  practical  measure,  it  is  clerical  jealousy  or 
sectarianism.  Such  a  thing  as  a  good  motive  does  not  seem,  in 
the  judgment  of  some  of  our  friends,  to  be  capable  of  dwelling 
beneath  a  black  coat. 

Of  this  stamp,  more  than  ever  before,  is  friend  Garrison.  And 
Mrs.  Chapman  remarked  to  me  the  other  day  that  she  sometimes 
doubted  which  needed  abolition  most — slavery  or  the  black 
hearted  ministry. 

For  this  cause  alone  we  are  on  the  brink  of  a  general  split  in 
our  ranks.  .  .  .  And  as  if  to  make  a  bad  matter  worse,  Garrison 
insists,  notwithstanding  repeated  remonstrances,  on  yoking  per 
fectionism,  no  governmentism,  and  woman  preaching  with  abo 
lition,  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  lump.  See  the  last  two 
"Liberators."  Now,  for  one,  I  can  not  stand  this.  I  can  not 
merge  everything  in  my  abolition ;  and  if  he  insists  on  thrusting 
his  peculiar  views  across  mine,  mine  will  and  must  stand  on  the 
defensive.  .  .  .  The  whole  question  is  fast  becoming  a  question 
of  persons ;  and  that,  not  whether  we  will  sustain  W.  L.  Garrison, 
the  abolitionist,  but  whether  we  will  sustain  him  in  the  other 
things  named.  .  .  .  The  danger  is,  and  it  is  by  no  means  small, 
that  the  quarrel  will  go  through  the  whole  country.  Garrison 
threatened  some  time  since  to  come  out  upon  the  American  So 
ciety  for  their  silence.  ...  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  the 
matter  comes  up  at  the  annual  meeting  in  New  York  in  the 
spring.  We  have  not  seen  the  end  of  it  yet.  (MS.) 

At  the  outbreak,  in  July,  of  the  storm  in  Massachu 
setts,  the  executive  committee  of  the  American  Anti-Slav 
ery  Committee  consisted  of  five  clergymen,  four  merchants, 
a  college  professor,  an  editor,  and  Elizur  Wright,  Jr.,  an 
ex-professor  of  mathematics,  a  writer  of  keen  wit,  and,  in 
after  days,  a  famous  insurance  actuary.  John  G.  Wrhittier 
was  the  secretary.  Judge  William  Jay,  the  corresponding 
secretary  of  the  society,  was  the  only  statesman  and  lawyer 
connected  with  the  New  York  management;  and  his 
judicial  duties  and  out-of-town  residence  prevented  him 
from  devoting  his  time  to  the  business  of  the  society.  In 
the  new  turn  of  affairs  Judge  Jay  wrote  to  Mr.  Birney, 


276  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

urging  him  to  come  to  New  York  and  take  the  helm,  and 
offering  to  resign  in  his  favor  the  office  of  corresponding 
secretary.  This  letter  was  followed  by  others  of  similar 
tenor  from  members  of  the  executive  committee.  Mr. 
I3irney  was  loath  to  assume  the  responsibilities  of  the  posi 
tion  offered  him  ;  his  relations  with  Western  abolitionists 
were  exceedingly  pleasant,  and  he  was  established  in  a 
comfortable  home  of  his  own  at  Cincinnati.  After  several 
weeks  of  consideration,  the  Eastern  troubles  growing  mean 
while,  he  finally  decided  to  go.  Under  his  advice  the  Na 
tional  Committee  cautioned  the  public  "  not  to  confound 
their  doctrines  with  such  as  individual  members  may  occa 
sionally  advance,"  and  acknowledged  their  "obligation 
not  to  permit  the  funds  of  the  society  to  be  used  for  the 
promotion  of  any  principles  or  objects  whatever,  except 
those  specified  in  the  constitution,"  and  declared  their 
determination  to  avoid  any  just  censure  "  in  regard  to  the 
agents  they  employ  and  the  publications  they  issue."  It 
is  probable  that  this  important  paper  was  drawn  up  by 
Mr.  Birney.  It  was  a  notice  to  Mr.  H.  C.  Wright  that  he 
could  no  longer  act  as  agent  and  a  disclaimer  of  the  novel 
doctrines  "  sifted  into  "  the  "  Liberator."  In  the  "  Phi 
lanthropist  "  of  September  15,  Mr.  Birney  published  an 
editorial  on  "  The  Boston  Controversy."  In  this  he  pointed 
out  indiscretions  on  both  sides.  The  article  was  just  and 
conciliatory ;  the  language  of  Messrs.  Fitch  and  Towne, 
though  unjustly  inculpatory  of  Oliver  Johnson,  did  not 
justify  the  language  and  style  of  Mr.  Johnson's  retort.  An 
editor  should  rule  his  spirit  and  be  a  peace-maker.  "  With 
the  spirit  that  breathes  through  Mr.  Garrison's  reply  we 
have  no  sympathy."  Neither  Mr.  Garrison  nor  any 
other  abolitionist  is  authorized  to  judge  and  rebuke  as 
Christ  did. 

We  are  much  disappointed  in  the  course  Mr.  Garrison  has 
pursued  on  the  present  occasion— and  we  are  grieved  because  we 


THE  NO-GOVERNMENT  VAGARY.  277 

are  disappointed.  ...  At  New  York,  in  1835,  when  Charles  Stu 
art  introduced  the  subject  of  abstaining  from  the  products  of 
slave  labor,  and  in  Boston,  last  spring,  when  the  Peace  Question 
was  brought  up  before  the  convention,  we  had  evidence  of  Mr. 
Garrison's  considerateness  and  self-control  that  inspired  us  with 
high  confidence  in  the  course  he  would  pursue  should  he  ever  be 
placed  in  circumstances  where  much  was  placed  at  hazard.  By 
his  reply  to  Messrs  Fitch  and  others,  we  have  been  much  disap 
pointed  and  our  confidence  in  his  prudence  much  weakened.* 

September  22,  Dr.  Bailey  announced  at  the  head  of  his 
editorial  columns,  that  Mr.  Birney  with  his  family  was  on 
his  way  to  New  York.  "A  conviction  that  his  efforts 
will  be  more  influential  there  than  here  in  behalf  of  abo 
lition  reconciles  us  in  a  degree  to  the  loss  of  his  society, 
counsel,  and  aid." 

It  is  not  probable  that  at  that  time  Mr.  Birney  com 
prehended  the  nature  of  the  difficulties  which  were  to  be 
thorns  in  his  path.  His  social  environment  in  Kentucky, 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Alabama,  and  Ohio,  differed 
widely  from  that  existing  in  Boston,  and  his  acquaint 
ance  with  professional  reformers  of  all  mundane  evils  had 
not  been  intimate.  His  visits  to  New  England  had  been 
hurried  and  his  mind  had  been  fully  occupied  with  the 
great  end  he  had  in  view — the  abolition  of  slavery — with 
very  little  regard,  it  must  be  admitted,  to  the  metaphysics 
of  reform  movements  generally.  He  was  eminently  of  a 
practical  turn  of  mind.  For  the  next  few  years  he  was 
to  be  brought  into  close  contact  with  the  New  England 
reformers,  a  class  exceedingly  numerous  between  1815  and 

*  The  two  instances  in  which  Mr.  Garrison,  in  Mr.  Birney's  presence, 
had  refrained  from  disturbing  conventions  with  irrelevant  subjects,  are 
here  specified  as  the  reasons  for  confidence  that  he  would  be  equally  con 
siderate  in  the  future.  The  passage  does  not  justify  the  inuendo  that  Mr. 
Birney  had  former  confidence  in  his  judgment  and  prudence  (Garrison, 
ii,  166). 


278  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

1840  and  noticed  by  Emerson,  in  his  Amory  Hall  lecture, 
as  follows : 

The  Church  or  religious  party,  is  falling  from  the  Church 
nominal,  and  is  appearing  in  temperance  and  non-resistant  soci 
eties,  in  movements  of  abolitionists  and  of  socialists,  and  in  very 
significant  assemblies  called  Sabbath  and  Bible  conventions,  com 
posed  of  ultraists,  of  seekers,  of  all  the  soul  of  the  soldiery  of 
dissent,  and  meeting  to  call  in  question  the  authority  of  the  Sab 
bath,  of  the  priesthood,  and  of  the  Church.  In  these  movements, 
nothing  was  more  remarkable  than  the  discontent  they  begot  in 
the  movers.  The  spirit  of  protest  and  of  detachment  drove  the 
members  of  these  conventions  to  bear  testimony  against  the 
Church,  and,  immediately  afterward,  to  declare  their  discontent 
with  these  conventions,  their  independence  of  their  colleagues, 
and  their  impatience  of  the  methods  whereby  they  were  working. 
They  defied  each  other,  like  a  congress  of  kings,  each  of  whom 
had  a  realm  to  rule,  and  way  of  his  own  that  made  concert  un 
profitable.  What  a  fertility  of  projects  for  the  salvation  of  the 
world !  One  apostle  thought  all  men  should  go  to  farming  ;  and 
another,  that  no  man  should  buy  or  sell ;  that  the  use  of  money 
was  the  cardinal  evil  ;  another,  that  the  mischief  was  in  our  diet, 
that  we  cat  and  drink  damnation.  These  made  unleavened 
bread  and  were  foes  to  the  death  to  fermentation.  It  was  in 
vain  urged  by  the  housewife  that  God  made  yeast  as  well  as 
dough,  and  loves  fermentation  just  as  dearly  as  lie  loves  vegeta 
tion  ;  that  fermentation  develops  the  saccharine  element  in  the 
grain  and  makes  it  more  palatable  and  more  digestible.  No; 
they  wish  the  pure  wheat  and  will  die,  but  it  shall  not  fer 
ment.  .  .  .  Others  attacked  the  system  of  agriculture,  the  use  of 
animal  manures  in  farming,  and  the  tyranny  of  man  over  brute 
nature ;  these  abuses  polluted  his  food.  The  ox  must  be  taken 
from  the  plow,  and  the  horse  from  the  cart,  the  hundred  acres 
of  the  farm  must  be  spaded  and  the  man  must  walk  wherever 
boats  and  locomotives  will  not  carry  him.  Even  the  insect  world 
was  to  be  defended;  that  had  been  too  long  neglected,  and  a 
society  for  the  protection  of  ground  worms,  slugs,  and  mos 
quitoes,  was  to  be  incorporated  without  delay.  With  these  ap 
peared  the  adepts  of  homoeopathy,  of  hydropathy,  of  mesmerism, 


THE  NO-GO VERXMEXT  VAGARY.  279 

of  phrenology,  and  their  wonderful  theories  of  the  Christian 
miracles!  Others  assailed  particular  vocations,  as  that  of  the 
lawyer,  that  of  the  merchant,  of  the  manufacturer,  of  the  clergy 
man,  of  the  scholar.  Others  attacked  the  institution  of  marriage 
as  the  fountain  of  social  evils.  Others  devoted  themselves  to  the 
worrying  of  churches  and  meetings  for  public  worship. 

Mr.  Emerson  notes  in  the  movement  a  tendency 
to 
on  assertion  of  the  sufficiency  of  the  private  man.  Thus  it  was 
directly  in  the  spirit  and  genius  of  the  age,  what  happened  in 
one  instance,  when  a  church  censured  and  threatened  to  excom 
municate  one  of  its  members  on  account  of  the  somewhat  hostile 
part  to  the  Church  which  his  conscience  led  him  to  take  in  the 
anti-slavery  business ;  the  threatened  individual  immediately  ex 
communicated  the  church  in  a  published  and  formal  process.  .  .  . 
Many  a  reformer  perishes  in  his  removal  of  rubbish— and  that 
makes  the  offensiveness  of  the  class.  They  are  partial ;  they  are 
not  equal  to  the  work  they  pretend.  Thej7  lose  their  way;  in 
the  assault  on  the  kingdom  of  darkness,  they  expend  all  their 
energy  on  some  accidental  evil,  and  lose  their  sanity  and  power 
of  benefit.  It  is  of  little  moment  that  one  or  two  or  twenty  er 
rors  of  our  social  system  be  corrected,  but  of  much  that  the  man 
be  in  his  senses.  The  criticism  and  attack  on  institutions  which 
we  have  witnessed  has  made  one  thing  plain,  that  society  gains 
nothing  while  a  man,  not  himself  renovated,  attempts  to  renovate 
things  around  him ;  he  has  become  tediously  good  in  some  par 
ticular,  but  negligent  or  narrow  in  the  rest ;  and  hypocrisy  and 
vanity  are  often  the  disgusting  result.  .  .  .  The  reason  why  any 
one  refuses  his  assent  to  your  opinion,  or  his  aid  to  your  benevo 
lent  design,  is  in  you ;  he  refuses  t6  accept  you  as  a  bringer  of 
truth,  because,  though  you  think  you  have  it,  he  feels  that  you 
have  it  not. 

Another  writer,  adopting  the  style  of  a  medical  formula, 
describes  the  character  of  the  representative  reformer  of 
the  period  under  treatment : 

Add  to  his  blood  a  drop  of  malignity,  to  his  disposition  a 
tinge  of  melancholy,  to  his  self-worship  vanity,  to  his  love  of  re- 


280  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

form  a  prominent  desire  for  notoriety,  and  you  have  an  irre 
pressible  "crank,"  the  curse  to  any  reform  he  may  select  for 
his  sphere  of  action,  a  stumbling  block  to  the  timid  and  con 
servative. 

When  the  seed  was  sown  for  the  crop  of  New  England 
reformers,  and  how  it  grew  and  yielded  a  plentiful  harvest, 
will  be  the  subject  of  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 
THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  BOSTON   VAGARIES. 

DURING  the  eighteenth  century  the  psychological  phi 
losophy  commonly  known  as  Locke's  governed  the  thought 
of  the  English-speaking  world.  Its  accepted  doctrines 
were  that  the  world  external  to  man  has  a  substantive  ex 
istence  ;  that  knowledge  is  derived  from  the  senses ;  that 
true  ideas  originate  in  experience  and  are,  not  innate ;  and 
that  the  hest  traditions  of  the  human  race  are  more  trust 
worthy  for  guidance  than  the  intuitions,  imaginary  and 
illusory  for  the  most  part,  of  individual  minds.  Its  abuses 
were  to  honor  inductive  reasoning  overmuch  and  restrain 
progress  by  its  slow  processes ;  to  exaggerate  the  value,  in 
social  and  political  life,  of  expediency,  conventionalism, 
and  conservatism ;  and  to  elevate  dogmas,  rites,  and 
church  organizations  above  the  spiritual  part  of  religion. 

About  the  close  of  the  last  century  a  reaction  against 
this  sensual  system  began  in  New  England  under  the  in 
fluences  of  the  new  doctrines  taught  by  Kant  and  other 
German  philosophers,  and  it  gradually  extended  until  in 
the  next  forty  years  it  embraced  the  leading  thinkers  of 
Boston  and  affected  every  form  of  social  life  in  New  Eng 
land. 

The  new  school  reversed  the  doctrines  of  its  predeces 
sors.  It  held  that  the  only  reality  is  subjective,  or,  in 
plain  words,  that  objects  commonly  thought  to  be  exter 
nal  to  man  exist  only  in  his  consciousness ;  that  all  ideas 


282  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

are  intuitions,  that  the  soul  is  the  only  creator,  being  di 
vine,  receiving  inspiration  immediately  from  God  and  ac 
cepting  truth  from  the  moral  necessity  of  its  own  nature ; 
that  the  true  man  should  look  to  intuitive  and  inspired 
principles  without  the  aid  of  facts,  and,  if  necessary,  in 
disregard  of  them ;  that  he  should  be  a  law  unto  himself 
and  obedient  to  his  own  heart,  mind,  and  conscience  with 
out  regard  to  the  intuitions  or  desires  of  other  men ;  that 
his  primary  duty  is  self-culture,  by  means  of  which  he 
could  "  unfold "  himself  to  perfection  according  to  his 
inward  nature ;  that  the  human  soul,  being  divine  in  its 
essence,  is  allied  to  omnipotence,  and  "  the  simplest  per 
son  who  in  his  integrity  worships  God  becomes  God." 

This  philosophy  asserting  so  strongly  the  dignity  of 
human  nature,  the  inherent  worth  of  the  individual  man, 
his  supremacy  over  his  surroundings,  and  his  natural  right 
to  think  and  act  independently  of  all  other  men,  appealed 
with  power  to  the  leading  minds  of  a  country  fresh  from 
the  formation  of  State  and  National  Governments  and 
the  creation  of  the  only  great  republic.  In  1800  an 
American  was  conscious  of  his  immense  superiority,  in 
achieved  privileges  and  possibilities  of  eminence,  to  the 
inhabitant  of  any  other  country,  and  an  educated  citizen 
of  Massachusetts  was  conscious  of  his  advantages  over  all 
other  Americans.  Hence  the  rapid  spread  in  that  State 
of  the  new  ideas. 

Their  workings  were  soon  visible  in  the  increase  of 
dissent.  The  belief  that  religion  is  the  "  soul's  own  sense 
of  tilings  divine"  discredited  the  orthodox  Church  and 
the  received  dogmas  of  Bible  interpretation.  Some  of  the 
churches  discontinued  the  worship  of  Christ.  Afterward, 
in  1805,  the  Divinity  chair  in  Harvard  University  passed 
into  the  hands  of  a  Unitarian  professor,  and  in  1815  the 
Congregationalist  Church  was  split  in  twain  by  the  seces 
sion  of  the  Unitarian  congregations. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  BOSTON  VAGARIES.      283 

Other  churches  lost  members  by  the  growth  of  anti- 
nomianism,  resulting  in  schisms  more  or  less  important. 
The  most  striking  illustration  of  the  effect  upon  churches 
of  the  new  sentiment  of  the  supreme  dignity  of  the  indi 
vidual  man  and  his  right  to  express  without  restraint  his 
aspirations,  no  matter  how  changeable,  is  found  in  the 
men  who  separated  themselves  from  the  Church  and  were 
known  as  "  Gome-outers."  They  "  had  no  distinguishing 
tenets,  but  held  opinions  of  every  radical  type,  taking  their 
name  from  the  mere  circumstances  of  their  having  '  come 
out'  from  the  regular  churches."  Frothingham,  in  the* 
seventh  chapter  of  his  life  of  Theodore  Parker,  describes 
some  of  them.  "  Brother  Jones  was  to  hold  forth  .  .  . 
on  the  second  coming  of  Christ  in  1843."  "  There  was 
Joseph  Palmer,  a  man  with  a  meek  face  and  a  fine  gray 
beard  six  or  eight  inches  long,  clad  in  fustian  trousers  and 
a  clean  white  jacket.  He  had  been  a  butcher,  but  had  re 
nounced  that  calling,  partly  from  the  convictions  of  the 
wrongf ulness  of  eating  flesh.  Alcott  found  him  full  of 
'  divine  thoughts.'  He  wore  his  beard  because  God  gave 
it  to  him,  doubtless  for  some  good  end."  He  thought  a 
man  got  into  the  Church  by  giving  to  the  poor,  and  no 
man  but  himself  could  put  him  out.  "  Xickerson  and 
Davis  were  two  preachers  among  the  Come-outers,  two  as 
rough-looking  men  as  you  would  like  to  meet  on  a  sum 
mer's  day  ;  but  their  countenances  were  full  of  the  divine. 
Their  hands,  their  dress,  their  general  air,  showed  that 
they  belonged  to  the  humblest  class  in  society."  "  Mr. 
Bearse  was  a  plain  Cape  Cod  fisherman,  a  skipper  prob 
ably,  of  bright,  ruddy,  cheerful  countenance."  He  was 
opposed  to  all  sects  and  to  the  Church  universal,  calling 
them  "  little  Babels  "  and  it  "  one  great  Babel." 

These  men  thought  little  of  rites.  Said  Mr.  Bearse : 
"  Sometimes  a  brother  wishes  to  be  baptized,  and,  if  the 
spirit  moves  me,  I  baptize  him,  .  .  .  any  one  into  whom 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

God  puts  the  desire  may  do  it."  The  Lord's  Supper  they 
held  in  light  estimation.  "  All  our  meals  are  the  Lord's 
Supper  if  we  eat  with  a  right  heart.  .  .  .  Whoever  wished 
to  join  their  company  did  so  without  ceremony.  No 
questions  were  asked  about  his  creed.  He  subscribed  to 
no  confession,  set  his  name  to  no  paper,  was  free  to  come 
and  go."  Should  an  unbeliever  offer  to  speak  in  meeting, 
they  heard  what  he  had  to  say,  and  if  he  could  convince 
them  they  were  ready  to  be  convinced.  They  had  no 
rules  for  worship ;  each  spoke  as  moved.  They  had  no 
church  edifices  and  their  ministers  received  no  salary. 
They  did  not  consider  the  Bible  inspired,  but  used  it  as  a 
help.  "  Men  worshiped  the  Bible  just  as  the  old  pagans 
worshiped  their  idols.  .  .  .  The  Bible  is  a  scripture  of  the 
Word,  not  the  Word  itself.  .  .  .  They  held  that  men  were 
inspired  in  proportion  as  they  had  received  the  truth,  and 
they  received  the  truth  through  obedience."  In  all  this 
the  new  philosophy  appears  in  a  religious  garb  put  upon 
it  by  uncultured  men. 

But  the  most  intellectual  men  were  not  free  from  the 
spirit  of  "  comeouterism."  Emerson  would  not  vail  his 
bonnet  to  circumstance  or  violate  his  own  moral  intuitions ; 
and  he  resigned  his  pastorate  and  abandoned  the  pulpit 
rather  than  administer  the  communion  to  members  of  the 
church.  Eev.  George  Ripley,  after  preaching  for  fifteen 
years,  threw  off  his  clerical  frock  in  order  that  his  soul 
might  not  be  hampered  by  possible  misunderstandings  on 
the  part  of  his  parishioners.  Nothing  would  content  him 
but  freedom  to  embrace  the  absolute  right  as  he  should 
see  it.  Both  these  gentlemen  believed  that  the  inviolate 
soul  is  in  perpetual  communication  with  the  source  of 
events.  Eev.  W.  H.  Furness  is  said  to  have  believed  that 
the  man  perfected  by  obedience  is  capable  of  working 
miracles. 

After  the  close  of  the  war  in  1815,  the  new  philosophy 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  BOSTON  VAGARIES.      285 

was  taught  in  Harvard,  with  limitations,  of  course,  as  to 
its  logical  results.  But  the  generation  growing  up  at  that 
time  showed  many  converts  in  after  days.  Among  them 
was  A.  Bronson  Alcott,  who  was  the  first  to  apply  the 
spiritual  views  to  the  practical  work  of  education.  His 
first  school  was  established  in  1825.  Having  faith  in  the 
soul  and  believing  that  the  soul  of  a  child  antedates  its 
body,  and  that  its  ideas  are  inspired  by  God,  his  object  as 
a  teacher  was  to  entice  the  indwelling  deity  in  the  child 
forth  by  sympathy.  Instead  of  being  taught,  the  pupils 
were  to  evolve  all  knowledge  out  of  their  own  conscious 
ness.  All,  even  the  youngest,  were  required  to  keep  diaries. 
To  maintain  the  free  development  of  the  individual  soul, 
no  punishment  was  inflicted  ;  but,  if  absolutely  necessary, 
Mr.  Alcott  suffered  it  vicariously — a  method  that  proved 
satisfactory  to  the  pupils.  Becoming  convinced  that  eat 
ing  beef  encourages  bovine  qualities  in  man,  he,  renounced 
flesh  diet,  and  thereafter  confined  himself  to  a  food  com 
posed  of  fruits,  vegetables,  and  bran  bread.  His  strong 
anti-slavery  sentiments  led  him  to  study  the  condition  of 
laboring  men,  including'  slaves,  and  having  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  the  wages  system  is  but  a  modification  of 
chattel  slavery,  and  that  the  root  of  the  evil  in  servitude 
is  the  divorce  of  labor  and  culture,  he  determined  to  unite 
these  in  his  own  person  and  preach  abolition  by  his  per 
sonal  example.  Thenceforth  he  supported  himself  by 
manual  labor,  chopping  wood  in  winter  and  working  in 
the  fields  and  gardens  in  summer.  In  his  view  the  alle 
giance  of  the  free  soul  was  due  to  God  alone ;  he  was  un 
willing  that  any  human  government  should  intervene  be 
tween  him  and  God ;  he  asked  nothing  from  the  State 
and  thought  the  State  had  no  right  to  ask  anything  from 
him ;  he  therefore  refused  to  pay  his  taxes  and  went  to 
jail  in  the  serenity  of  spirit  worthy  of  a  philosopher.  To 
make  actual  his  ideal  of  a  perfect  social  life  he  estab- 


286  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

lished  a  community.  This  lasted  during  one  summer  and 
autumn. 

He  was  one  of  the  best  talkers  ever  produced  in  Massa 
chusetts  ;  could  hold  forth  for  hours  after  the  style  of 
Coleridge ;  was  the  soul  of  several  Boston  and  Concord 
clubs,  formal  and  informal,  for  two  generations,  and  a 
brilliant  and  plausible  lecturer.  His  mystic  sayings  were 
puzzles  in  his  own  age  and  are  hardly  yet  understood. 
"  The  poles  of  things  are  not  integrated,"  and  "  Love 
globes,  wisdom  orbs  all  things,"  are  examples.  He  had 
many  admiring  friends  and  hearers,  among  whom  were 
Samuel  J.  May,  Edmund  Quincy,  and  Willliam  L.  Gar 
rison. 

A  very  able  man  of  the  same  class,  but  not  so  well 
known  as  Alcott,  was  Rev.  Samuel  Johnson.  Among  his 
sayings  was  the  following,  "  Man  is  divinely  prescient  of 
his  infinity  of  mind  as  soon  as  he  begins  to  meditate  and 
respire." 

Between  1832  and  1844  Orestes  A.  Brownson  ran  at 
Boston  the  brilliant  part  of  his  career.  He  had  been  a 
Presbyterian,  a  Universalist,  and  a  labor  reformer.  He 
was  then  a  Unitarian,  and  passed  from  that  through  in 
fidelity,  and  finally,  in  1844,  into  the  bosom  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  lie  was  editor  of  the  Boston  "  Quarterly," 
and  for  several  years  an  apostle  of  the  intuitive  school. 
He  gained  great  notoriety  by  his  extravagant  phrases  and 
incisive  style,  which  he  studied  to  make  startling  and  para 
doxical  ;  but  he  had  generally  the  good  taste  to  shun 
personalities.  His  manner  of  writing  was  imitated  by 
many  feebler  men  who  were  anxious  to  attract  public 
notice  to  themselves.  As  intuitions  may  change  with 
lightning-like  rapidity,  Brownson  never  took  the  trouble 
to  apologize  for  inconsistencies.  One  of  his  admirers  says 
of  him :  "  That  others  thought  as  lie  did  was  enough  to 
make  him  think  otherwise ;  that  he  thought  as  he  had  six 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  BOSTON  VAGARIES.      287 

months  before  was  a  signal  that  it  was  time  for  him  to 
strike  his  tent  and  move  on." 

Brownson  was  a  forcible  speaker.  It  was  said,  in  the 
height  of  his  celebrity,  that  if  one  wished  to  become  a  per 
fect  orator,  he  should  unite  Brownson's  strength  with 
Edward  Everett's  diction  and  delivery.  He  was  an  icono 
clast,  and  sympathized  with  the  most  advanced  advocates 
of  destructive  reforms. 

While  all  who  had  drunk  the  new  wine  were  filled  with 
a  supreme  disgust  of  the  actual,  the  action  of  each  was  modi 
fied  by  his  personal  qualities.  The  sensitive,  fastidious,  and 
dreamy  Thoreau,  averse  to  contact  with  abuses,  cultivated 
the  divine  in  himself ;  he  built  a  hut  in  a  wood  on  the  edge 
of  a  lake,  and  communed  with  Xature  and  his  own  soul  at 
an  annual  outlay  of  some  fifteen  dollars.  George  Ripley 
,and  his  associates,  benevolent,  abhorring  oppression,  desir 
ous  of  superseding  the  actual  and  establishing  an  ideal 
society  in  which  there  should  be  no  slaves,  no  menials,  and 
no  drudges,  dazzled  by  the  day-dreams  of  St.  Simon  and 
Fourier,  and  having  boundless  confidence  in  their  own 
intuitions  of  the  practical  and  a  corresponding  contempt 
for  the  teachings  of  human  experience,  established  the 
famous  community  of  "  Brook  Farm."  This  attempt  to 
reconstruct  the  social  order,  with  a  view  to  the  symmetrical 
development  of  men  as  rational  beings,  exhibited  so  much 
self-denial,  perseverance,  and  hopefulness  on  the  part  of 
the  men  who  made  it  that  it  holds  the  first  place  in  the 
long  list  of  American  Utopias. 

It  was  preceded  by  the  more  distinctly  anti-slavery  com 
munity  of  Hopedale,  Mass.  This  was  formed  by  abolition 
ists  who  were  also  Universalists.  In  an  account  of  it, 
written  by  Adin  Ballou,  its  principal  founder  and  repub- 
lished  in  the  "  History  of  American  Socialisms,"  by  J.  H. 
Koj^es,  himself  a  Communistic  Socialist,  we  find  the  fol 
lowing  :  "  Xo  precise  theological  dogmas,  ordinances,  or 


288  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ceremonies  are  prescribed.  ...  It  enjoins  total  abstinence 
from  .  .  .  all  intoxicating  beverages ;  ...  all  slave-holding 
and  proslavery  compromises ;  all  war  and  preparations  for 
war ;  all  capital  and  other  vindictive  punishments ;  .  .  . 
all  voluntary  participations  in  any  anti-Christian  govern 
ment,  .  .  .  whether  by  doing  military  service,  commenc 
ing  actions  at  law,  holding  office,  voting,  petitioning  for 
penal  laws,  aiding  a  legal  posse  by  force,  or  asking  for  pub 
lic  interference  for  protection  which  can  be  given  only  by 
such  force.  .  .  .  It  is  a  moral  suasion  temperance  society 
on  a  teetotal  basis.  It  is  a  moral-power  anti-slavery  socie 
ty,  radical  and  without  compromise.  It  is  a  peace  society 
on  the  only  impregnable  foundation  of  Christian  non-re 
sistance.  It  is  a  sound  theoretical  and  practical  woman's 
rights  association." 

A  similar  community,  omitting  Universalism,  was 
formed  about  the  same  time  at  Northampton,  Mass. 

These  organizations  were  outgrowths  of  the  all-pervad 
ing  anti-slavery  sentiment  in  Massachusetts,  ripened  into 
rankness  by  the  warmth  of  the  new  philosophy.  For 
proof  read  the  following  passage  from  a  speech  by  Charles 
A.  Dana : 

We  have  an  association  at  Brook  Farm,  of  which  I  now  speak 
from  my  own  experience.  We  have  there  abolished  domestic 
servitude.  This  institution  of  domestic  servitude  was  one  of  the 
first  considerations ;  it  gave  one  of  the  first  impulses  to  the  move 
ment  at  Brook  Farm.  ...  It  was  a  deadly  sin — a  thing  to  be 
escaped  from.  (Noyes,  p.  222.) 

The  communities  were  not  organized  until  after  1840, 
but  they  were  crystallizations  of  opinions  and  aspirations 
which  had  been  growing  into  definite  form  since  1830. 
One  path  to  them  began  in  anti-slavery  Unitarianism  and 
passed  through  Fourierism ;  the  other  began  in  anti-slav 
ery  orthodoxy  and  passed  through  perfectionism.  This 
was  the  one  followed  by  Mr.  Garrison.  At  the  beginning 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  BOSTON  VAGARIES.     289 

of  his  career  he  was  a  Calyinistic  Baptist  in  theory,  though 
'not  a  church-member  or  professor  of  personal  religion. 
Having  become  hostile  to  the  Sabbath  and  other  Christian 
ordinances  and  to  all  church  organizations,  he  became  an 
easy  convert  to  perfectionism.  J.  H.  Noyes,  afterward  the 
founder  of  the  Oneida  Community,  but  in  1837  the  editor 
of  the  "  Perfectionist  "  (New  Haven,  Conn.),  called  on  Mr. 
Garrison  on  March  20th  of  that  year.  Of  this  interview 
Mr.  Noyes  (see  G.  ii,  145)  writes : 

He  spoke  with  interest  of  the  perfectionist,  said  his  mind  was 
heaving  on  the  subject  of  holiness  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
and  he  would  devote  himself  to  them  as  soon  as  he  could  get  anti- 
slavery  off  his  hands.  I  spoke  to  him  especially  on  the  subject 
of  government,  and  found  him,  as  I  expected,  ripe  for  the  loyalty 
of  heaven.* 

This  last  was  the  cant  phrase  of  the  period  for  disa 
vowing  all  allegiance  to  human  governments  and  declaring 
one's  allegiance  to  God  alone.  Human  laws  and  institu 
tions  had  no  binding  force  on  a  man  in  whom  "  the  God- 
life  was  infolded."  March  22d,  Mr.  Noyes  developed  his 
views  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Garrison  abounding  in  delicate 
strokes  of  flattery  and  betraying  a  reasoned  hostility  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  Among  other  things 
he  said :  "  My  hope  of  the  millennium  begins  where  Dr. 
Beecher's  expires,  viz.,  at  the  overthrow  of  this  nation." 
He  claimed  authority  "  to  stand  in  readiness  actively  to 
assist  in  the  execution  of  God's  purposes."  (G.  ii,  147.) 

April  16th,  Mr.  Garrison,  in  a  letter  to  H.  C.  Wright, 
then  in  Xew  York,  avows  his  no-human  government  prin- 

*  That  Mr.  Garrison  wished  to  abandon  the  anti-slavery  cause  about 
this  time,  and  to  devote  himself  to  his  new  hobby  of  no-human  govern 
ment,  is  proved  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  Mr.  Noyes,  Angelina 
Grimke,  Lewis  Tappan,  II.  B.  Staaton,  and  others.  It  is  probable  that 
nothing  was  lacking  except  money.  Capital  is  shy  of  anarchical  doc 
trines. 

14 


290  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ciples  and  ultra-pacific  views,  and  says  of  his  "  religious 
views  "  :  "  My  own  are  very  simple,  but  they  make  havoc 
of  all  sects  and  rites  and  ordinances  of  the  priesthood  ol! 
every  name  and  order."  (G.  ii,  149.) 

August  26th,  Mr.  Garrison  wrote  to  his  brother-in-law  : 
"  I  feel  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do,  whether  to 
go  into  all  the  principles  of  holy  reform  and  make  tho 
abolition  cause  subordinate  or  whether  still  to  persevere  in 
the  one  beaten  track  as  hitherto."  (G.  ii,  160.)  The  next 
day  Angelina  Grimke,  having  just  received  a  visit  from 
Mr.  Garrison,  in  wrhich  she  had  gained  his  adhesion  to 
woman's  rights,  wrote  to  Mr.  Weld  :  "  What  wouldst  thou 
think  of  the  '  Liberator '  abandoning  abolitionism  as  a 
primary  object  and  becoming  the  vehicle  of  all  these 
grand  principles?  "  (G.  ii,  161.) 

Mr.  Weld  would  doubtless  have  been  much  gratified 
to  have  the  abolition  cause  disburdened  of  the  "  Liber 
ator,"  but  the  plan  was  impracticable,  probably  for  want 
of  pecuniary  means,  the  friends  of  the  "  grand  principles '' 
of  Nihilism  having  no  money  to  support  another  newspa 
per  organ. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  in  the  evolution  of  ideas  that 
the  men  who  favored  sweeping  away  all  human  govern 
ments  and  institutions  generally  ended  by  organizing  on 
a  small  scale  governments  and  institutions  of  their  own. 
Mr.  Noyes,  it  has  been  already  said,  became  the  founder 
of  the  Oneida  Community,  but  he  was  preceded  several 
years  in  this  kind  of  work  by  a  bosom  friend  of  Mr.  Gar 
rison's.  The  Skaneateles  Community  had  its  tap-root  in 
the  very  office  of  the  "  Liberator."  We  quote  from  Koyes's 
"  History  of  Socialisms  "  the  following  : 

It  was  time  for  anti-slavery,  the  last  and  most  vigorous  of 
Massachusetts  nurslings,  to  enter  the  socialistic  field.  .  .  .  John 
A.  Collins,  the  founder  of  the  Skaneateles  Community,  was  a 
Boston  man,  and  had  been  a  working  abolitionist  up  to  the  sum- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  BOSTON  VAGARIES.      291 

mer  of  1843.  He  was,  in  fact,  the  general  agent  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Anti- Slavery  Society,  and  in  that  capacity  had  superin 
tended  the  one  hundred  national  conventions  ordered  by  the 
society  for  that  year.  During  the  latter  part  of  this  service  he 
had  turned  his  own  attention  and  that  of  the  conventions  he 
managed  so  much  toward  his  private  schemes  of  association  that 
he  had  not  the  face  to  claim  his  salary  as  anti-slavery  agent.  His 
way  was  to  get  up  a  rousing  anti-slavery  convention  and  conclude 
it  by  calling  a  socialistic  convention  to  be  held  on  the  spot  im 
mediately  after  it.  At  the  close  of  the  campaign  he  resigned, 
and  the  Anti-Slavery  Board  gave  him  the  following  certificate  of 
character  : 

"Voted,  That  the  board,  in  accepting  the  resignation  of  John 
A.  Collins,  tender  him  their  sincercest  thanks  and  take  this  oc 
casion  to  bear  the  most  cordial  testimony  to  the  zeal  and  disin 
terestedness  with  which  at  a  great  crisis  he  threw  himself  a  will 
ing  offering  on  the  altar  of  the  anti-slavery  cause  as  well  as  to 
the  energy  and  rare  ability  with  which  for  four  years  he  has  dis 
charged  the  duties  of  their  general  agent,  and  in  parting  offer 
him  their  best  wishes  for  his  future  happiness  and  success." 
(P.  163.) 

As  Mr.  Collins  was  leaving  Mr.  Garrison's  board  for 
the  purpose  of  establishing  his  community,  and  Mr.  Gar 
rison  himself  had  attended  the  series  of  conventions,  this 
certificate  must  be  regarded  as  an  indorsement  both  of 
Mr.  Collins's  proposed  enterprise  and  of  the  bold  fraud 
upon  the  anti-slavery  public  by  which  he  had  sought  to 
identify  abolitionism  and  communism.  What  the  creed 
of  the  new  society  was  may  be  inferred  from  the  following 
passages  copied  from  it  as  published  in  Noyes's  "  History 
of  Socialisms"  (p.  163).  After  styling  it  a  "community 
of  property  and  interest  by  which  we  may  be  brought  into 
love  relations,"  the  "  fundamental  principles  "  are  stated : 

1.  Religion. — A  disbelief  in  any  special  revelation  of  God  to 
man  touching  his  will  and  thereby  binding  upon  man  as  authority 
in  any  arbitrary  sense  ;  that  all  forms  of  worship  should  cease  ; 
that  all  religions  of  every  age  and  nation  have  their  origin  in  the 


292  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AXD   HIS  TIMES. 

same  great  falsehood,  viz.,  God's  special  providence.  .  .  .  We 
regard  the  Sabbath  as  other  days,  the  organized  Church  as 
adapted  to  produce  strife  and  contention  rather  than  love  and 
peace,  the  clergy  as  an  imposition,  the  Bible  as  no  authority, 
miracles  as  unphilosophical,  and  salvation  from  sin  .  .  .  through 
a  sacrificed  God  as  a  remnant  of  heathenism. 

2.  Governments. — A  disbelief  in  the  rightful  existence  of  al 
governments  based  upon  physical  force,  that  they  are  organized 
bands  of  banditti  whose  authority  is  to  be  disregarded.     There 
fore  we  will  not  vote  under  such  governments  or  petition  to 
them,  but  demand  them  to  disband;  do  no  military  duty,  pay  no 
personal  or  property  taxes,  sit  upon  no  juries,  refuse  to  testify  in 
courts  of  so-called  justice,  and  never  appeal  to  the  laws  for  a  re 
dress   of  grievances,   but  use  all  peaceful  and  moral  means  to 
secure  their  complete  destruction. 

3.  That  there  is  to  be  no  individual  property,  but  all  goods 
shall  be  held  in  common. 

The  Chicago  Anarchists  of  our  day  have  never  put 
these  doctrines  in  a  clearer  light.  That  Mr.  Collins 
learned  them  in  the  four  years  of  his  service  in  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Office  at  Boston  is  certain.  Before  he  became 
agent  there  his  friend  Mr.  Garrison  had  declared  himself 
as  follows : 

We  can  not  acknowledge  allegiance  to  any  human  govern 
ment,  neither  can  we  oppose  any  such  government  by  a  resort  to 
physical  force.  .  .  .  Our  country  is  the  world,  our  countrymen 
are  all  mankind.  We  love  the  land  of  our  nativity  only  as  we 
love  all  other  lands.  .  .  .  We  can  allowT  no  appeal  to  patriotism 
to  revenge  any  national  insult  or  injury.  ...  If  a  nation  lias  no 
right  to  defend  itself  against  foreign  enemies,  no  individual  pos 
sesses  that  right  in  his  own  case.  .  .  .  We  register  our  testimony 
not  only  against  all  wars,  whether  offensive  or  defensive,  but  all 
preparations  for  war,  .  .  .  we  deem  it  unlawful  to  bear  arms  or 
to  hold  a  military  office.  ...  As  every  human  government  is 
upheld  by  physical  strength,  and  its  laws  are  enforced  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet,  WTC  can  not  hold  any  office.  .  .  .  We  there 
fore  voluntarily  exclude  ourselves  from  every  legislative  and 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  BOSTON  VAGARIES.      293 

judicial  body  and  repudiate  all  human  politics,  worldly  honors, 
and  stations  of  authority.  If  we  can  not  occupy  a  seat  in  the 
legislature  or  on  the  bench,  neither  can  we  elect  others  to  act  as 
our  substitutes  in  any  such  capacity. 

It  follows  that  wre  can  not  sue  any  man  at  law  to  compel  him 
by  force  to  restore  anything  which  he  may  have  wrongfully  taken 
from  us  or  others.  .  .  .  The  triumphant  progress  of  the  cause  of 
temperance  and  of  abolition  in  our  land  .  .  .  encourages  us  to 
combine  our  own  means  and  efforts  for  the  promotion  of  a  still 
greater  cause.  (See  "Declaration  of  Sentiments  of  the  Peace 
Convention,"  September,  1838,  Writings  of  Garrison,  p.  72.) 

Mr.  Garrison  had  entered  his  "  solemn  protest  against 
every  enactment "  forbidding  labor  on  Sunday  (see  "  Writ 
ings,"  p.  99),  and  declared  against  the  clergy  and  the 
Church. 

The  views  of  H.  C.  Wright,  expressed  in  and  after  1837, 
are  summed  up  in  his  book,  entitled  "  Ballot  -  box  and 
Battle-field."  A  few  extracts  will  show  their  character : 

Suppose  the  abolition  of  slavery  throughout  the  world  de 
pended  on  a  presidential  election,  and  that  my  vote  would  throw 
the  scale  for  abolition.  Shall  I  vote  ?  .  .  .  I  may  not  vote  for 
the  war  system  that  is  founded  in  guilt  and  blood  and  utterly 
wrong  in  its  origin,  its  principles  and  means,  even  to  abolish 
slavery. 

The  ranks  of  impracticables  in  Massachusetts  were 
swelled  by  Second  Adventists,  Mesmerists,  Grahamites, 
Fourierites,  Spiritualists,  and  advocates  of  free  love,  and 
of  the  substitution  of  barter  for  the  use  of  money.  All  of 
them  were  few  in  number  compared  with  the  whole  popu 
lation,  and  their  extreme  notions,  tolerated  at  first,  soon 
grew  offensive  or  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  nine  tenths  of 
the  people  of  New  England.  Emerson  shot  at  them  a 
few  of  his  bolts  of  satire : 

They  withdraw  themselves  from  the  common  labors  and  com 
petitions  of  the  market  and  the  caucus.  .  .  .  They  are  striking 


291  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

work  and  calling  out  for  something  worthy  to  do.  .  .  .  Thej 
are  not  good  citizens,  not  good  members  of  society  ;  unwilling!} 
they  bear  their  part  of  the  private  and  public  burdens.  They  dc 
not  even  like  to  vote.  .  .  .  They  filled  the  world  with  long 
words  and  long  beards.  .  .  .  They  began  in  words  and  ended  ii: 
words. 

Frothingham  says  of  their  self -culture  that  they  car 
ried  it  "  to  the  point  of  selfishness,  sacrificing  in  its  behalf 
sympathy,  brotherly  love,  patriotism,  friendship,  honor, 
producing  a  '  mountainous  me,'  fed  at  the  expense  of  lif eV 
sweetest  humanities." 

Their  strongest  aspiration  was  to  express  in  stinging 
epithets  and  vituperative  language  their  infinite  devotion 
to  the  cause  of  the  slave ;  but  they  were  serenely  indifferent 
to  its  success  or  failure.  They  would  not  cast  a  ballot  if 
the  act  would  free  three  million  slaves ! 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  OARRISONIANS. 

1837-1840. 

AFTER  his  arrival  in  Xew  York  Mr.  Birney  devoted 
his  attention  partly  to  checking  the  no-government  defec 
tion  at  Boston.  The  evil  proved,  however,  to  be  much 
more  deeply  seated  than  he  had  thought.  Its  progress 
must  be  indicated  here  in  a  very  cursory  manner 

November  16, 1837,  A.  A.  Phelps  wrote  from  Boston : 

If  I  can  get  on  without  a  public  censure  upon  friend  Garrison 
I  will  do  so  ;  if  not,  I  shall  give  full  and  free  expression  to  my 
dissent.  ...  I  had  not  noticed  Garrison's  omission  of  the  para 
graph  you  mentioned.  I  think  he  has  omitted  other  things — not 
many — of  the  same  character.  If  I  mistake  not.  Judge  Jay  sent 
him  a  letter  about  his  Providence  speech,  which  has  never  yet 
appeared. 

About  this  time  Lewis  Tappan  went  to  Boston  on  a 
peace  mission,  to  confer  with  the  authors  of  the  "  Clerical 
Appeal "  and  restore  harmony.  November  17th  he  wrote  : 

We  kept  the  appeal  out  of  the  discussion  until  the  last  day. 
Mr.  Garrison  and  Mr.  Oliver  Johnson  were  violent  against  Fitch, 
Towne  &  Co.,  calling  them  "hypocrites,"  " traitors,"  etc.  .  .  . 
At  the  last  moment  Mr.  Garrison,  at  the  instigation,  it  is  said,  of 
his  brother-in-law  Benson,  introduced  a  resolution  condemning 
the  appeal.  It  was  thought  best  not  to  oppose  it.  Think  of  his 
introducing  it  !  a  party  concerned  and  not  a  member  of  the  so 
ciety  !  Every  one  I  heard  speak  of  the  matter,  even  O.  Johnson, 
regretted  its  introduction. 


296  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

In  Mr.  Garrison's  remarks  he  was  full  of  perfectionism  doc 
trines.  It  is  evident  that  that  is  the  absorbing  thing  with  him  at 
present.  In  Boston  Mr.  Knapp  told  me  that  Garrison  would, 
after  January,  relinquish  the  "Liberator"  or  change  its  char 
acter,  unless  the  controversy  should  be  continued,  and  then  he 
would  think  it  his  duty  to  continue  the  "Liberator"  as  now  on 
that  account.  .  .  .  Messrs.  TowTne  and  Fitch,  so  far  as  I  could 
learn,  have  no  intention  of  lowering  the  abolition  standard  ;  but 
they  say  that  Garrison  is  so  much  disliked  by  the  orthodox  in 
Massachusetts  on  account  of  his  views  on  the  Sabbath,  on  gov 
ernment,  etc.,  that  none  of  them  will  join  the  Anti- Slavery  So 
ciety  while- he  holds  the  reins  here.  .  .  . 

I  endeavored  to  show  Towne,  etc., that  if  Mr.  Garrison  is  haul 
ing  off  to  engage  in  other  hobbies — as  Tie  will  if  they  let  him  alone 
— a  glorious  opportunity  presented  itself  of  taking  hold  of  the 
old  society  with  new  vigor.  ...  I  believe  they  (the  appellants) 
simply  intended  to  show  that  the  views  and  spirit  of  the  "Lib 
erator  "  were  such  that  they  could  go  no  further  with  its  editor 
as  the  leader  of  the  society  in  Massachusetts.  .  .  .  W.  L.  Garri 
son  attacks  the  clergy  as  such,  when  the  fact  is  they  have  come 
into  the  anti-slavery  ranks  ten  to  one  compared  with  any  other 
class  of  men,  A.  A.  Phelps  says.  .  .  .  W.  L.  Garrison  told  me  a 
year  since,  that  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  anti-slavery  cause  going  on 
without  the  need  of  his  labors,  he  should  attend  to  some  other 
objects  he  deemed  paramount.  He  then  opposed  family  prayer,  a 
regular  clergy,  etc. ;  of  late  his  views  have  been  more  developed. 
As  an  abolitionist,  therefore,  his  zeal  is  on  the  wane.  .  .  .  Oliver 
Johnson,  agent  of  the  Rhode  Island  Society,  will  do  well  "if  he 
does  not  sympathize  too  much  with  the  new  isms  of  W.  L.  Gar 
rison." 

February  8,  1838,  Judge  William  Jay  writes  from 
Bedford  : 

Having  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  I  could  not  hold  communion  with  any  society  that  was 
seeking  to  violate  it. 

What  Mr.  Garrison  was  doing  about  the  same  time  is 
pictured  in  a  letter  written  nearly  two  years  later  by  John 


THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISONIANS.  297 

E.  Fuller,  of  Boston.  Mr.  Fuller  was  one  of  the  original 
members  of  the  Xew  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  (1832), 
had  been  counselor  and  treasurer  of  the  Massachusetts 
Anti- Slavery  Society,  one  of  the  supporters  of  the  "  Lib 
erator,"  and  a  friend  of  Mr.  Garrison  in  time  of  need. 
(G.  ii,  12,  47,  69.)  The  accuracy  of  the  statements  in  the 
letter  was  never  questioned  by  Mr.  Garrison  or  his  biog 
raphers.  November  25,  1839,  Mr.  Fuller  writes  to  the 
editor  of  the  "  Massachusetts  Abolitionist  "  : 

Satisfied  that  the  present  state  of  the  anti-slavery  cause  de 
mands  a  publication  of  the  facts  in  the  case,  I  do  not  feel  at 
liberty  to  shrink  from  the  responsibility  of  giving  them  to  the 
public  in  answer  to  your  inquiries.  They  are  briefly  these  : 

Some  two  years  since  Mr.  Garrison  received  a  letter  from  Mr. 
James  Boyle  of  Ohio,*  which  was  subsequently  published  in  the 
''Liberator"  (March  23,  1838),  under  the  caption  of  "  A  Letter 
to  William  Lloyd  Garrison  touching  the  Clerical  Appeal,  Sec 
tarianism,  and  True  Holiness." 

The  character  of  the  letter  may  be  judged  from  the  following 
extracts  :  "For  your  independent  expression  of  your  sentiments 
respecting  human  governments — a  pagan  -  originated  Sabbath 
(Sun's  day)  — your  wise  refusal  to  receive  the  mark  of  the  beast 
either  in  your  forehead  or  in  your  right  hand,  by  practically 
sanctioning  the  irreligious  sects  which  corrupt  and  curse  the 
world,  your  merited  denunciation  of  these  sects,  of  the  sordid, 
dough-faced  popish  leaders  ;  but,  above  all,  for  your  Christ- 
exalting  poetry,  '  Christian  Rest,'  you  are  in  my  heart. 

' '  It  would  seem  from  the  sympathy  manifested  by  clerical  men 
in  this  country  toward  the  religion  and  priesthood  that  were 
abolished  in  France  that  they  would  rather  have  a  priesthood 
from  hell  than  none  at  all. 

*  Mr.  Boyle  was  from  New  England.  He  was  an  ex-clergyman  and 
perfectionist.  He  afterward  became  a  quack  doctor  in  New  York  city, 
and  advertised  himself  by  wearing  on  the  streets  a  cocked  hat,  long  black 
frock  coat,  colored  silk  knee-breeches,  large  gold  buckles  on  his  shoes, 
and  gold-rimmed  spectacles.  A  very  long  and  large  gold-headed  cane 
completed  bis  equipment. 


298  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

"I  have  observed  of  late  that  you  have  become  satisfied  that 
moral  influence  will  never  abolish  slavery  in  this  country.  [In  a 
note  Mr.  Fuller  says  :  * '  This  was  Mr.  Garrison's  opinion  at  that 
time."]  Of  this  I  have  long  been  certain.  The  signs  of  the  times 
indicate  clearly  to  my  mind  that  God  has  given  up  the  sects  and 
parties,  political  and  religious,  of  this  nation  into  the  hands  of  a 
perverse  and  lying  spirit,  and  left  them  to  fill  up  the  measure  of 
their  sins." 

In  publishing  this  letter  Mr.  Garrison  said  (editorially) :  "It 
is  one  of  the  most  powerful  epistles  ever  written  by  man.  We 
alone  are  responsible  for  its  publication.  It  utters  momentous 
truths  in  solemn  and  thrilling  language,  and  is  a  testimony  for 
God  and  his  righteousness  which  can  not  be  overthrown." 

Mr.  Garrison  had  the  letter  on  hand  some  time  previous  to  its 
publication,  and  read  it  repeatedly  to  individual  and  particular 
friends.  On  one  occasion,  before  its  appearance  in  the  "  Liber 
ator,"  myself  and  several  others  were  invited  to  meet  at  a  room 
in  the  Marlborough  Hotel  to  hear  it  read.  Mr.  Garrison,  having 
read  it,  spoke  of  it  in  terms  of  the  highest  commendation,  saying 
in  substance  that,  however  unpopular  its  doctrines,  they  were  true 
and  would  yet  be  received  by  the  people.  That  they  were  not 
now  prepared  for  them — that  if  a  new  publication  were  started 
for  the  purpose  of  promulgating  them  (a  measure  which  he  had 
had  under  consideration  some  months  before,  and  in  respect  to 
which  he  consulted  some  of  his  most  confidential  friends),  it 
would  not  get  sufficient  circulation  to  sustain  it  ;  that  the  abo 
litionists,  indeed,  were  the  only  class  of  the  community  that  had 
been  so  trained  to  free  discussion  as  to  bear  their  discussion,  and, 
therefore,  said  he,  "as  our  enemies  say,"  referring  to  the  charge 
of  Mr.  Woodbury  some  time  previous,  ' '  we  must  sift  it  into  the 
*  Liberator. '  "  This  is  the  substance  of  what  he  said. 

The  impression  I  received  from  it  at  the  time  was  that  it  was 
then  his  deliberate  design  to  take  advantage  of  the  abolition 
character  of  his  paper  to  "sift"  his  peculiar  opinions  on  other 
subjects  into  public  favor  .  As  I  had  never  before  believed  that 
Mr.  Garrison  had  any  such  design,  and  had  repelled  the  charge 
as  a  slander  upon  him,  I  was  of  course  surprised  at  this  avowal 
of  it  by  himself.  That  he  made  what  amounted  to  such  an  avowal 
I  am  sure  from  three  facts  : 


THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISONIAXS.          299 

1.  I  mentioned  it  to  Mrs.  Fuller  the  same  evening. 

2.  My  confidence  up  to  that  time  in  Mr.  Garrison's  integrity 
was  entire  and  implicit,  and   from  that  time  it  began  to   be 
shaken.     And 

3.  The  columns  of  the  ' '  Liberator  "  have  since  been  in  exact 
keeping  with  such  a  design.  ...  I  make  these  statements  in  no 
ill-will  to  Mr.  Garrison,  but  solely  because  I  believe  that  the  cause 
of  truth  and  freedom  demand  it. 

Yours  for  the  bondman,  JOHN  E.  FULLER. 

Mr.  Fuller  promptly  refused  to  march  under  false 
colors  with  Mr.  Garrison.  Many  other  abolitionists  fol 
lowed  his  example ;  the  people  of  Massachusetts  held 
aloof  from  the  cause,  and  before  the  anniversary  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  held  at  New  York,  May 
2-8  inclusive,  it  had  become  plain  that  the  no-government 
faction,  though  in  possession  of  the  "  Liberator  "  and  the 
machinery  of  the  State  society,  would  not  be  able  to  con 
trol  the  majority  of  the  abolitionists  of  the  State.  Under 
Mr.  Birney's  counsel  the  national  society,  after  refusing 
to  renew  H.  C.  Wright's  commission  as  agent,  forbore  to 
take  part  in  what  was  still  a  purely  local  affair.  The  cause 
was  progressing  so  well  in  the  other  Northern  States  that 
it  was  highly  desirable  to  avoid  dissension  at  the  anniver 
sary  meeting.  The  no-government  leaders  attended  in 
force — Henry  C.  Wright,  Oliver  Johnson,  Edmund  Quin- 
cy,  Samuel  J.  May,  Orson  S.  Murray,  W.  L.  Garrison, 
George  W.  Benson,  and  A.  Dresser,  were  all  present.  Their 
only  demonstrations  were  to  offer  a  resolution  expressing  a 
desire  that  agents  and  members  should  not  defend  them 
selves  by  physical  strength  against  violence,  which  was 
defeated,  receiving  only  nineteen  votes  ;  and  another  to  ap 
point  a  committee  which  should  "  announce  the  judgment 
of  the  American  Anti  -  Slavery  Society  concerning  the 
common  error  that  our  enterprise  is  of  a  political  and  not 
religious  character."  The  explosion  of  this  bomb-shell  was 


300  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

prevented  by  an  adjournment.  Oliver  Johnson  offered  an 
other  deprecating  the  imposition  by  any  anti-slavery  society 
of  "  a  religious  or  political  test  for  the  purpose  of  render 
ing  the  anti-slavery  cause  subservient  to  the  interests  of 
a  sect  or  party,  or  of  opposing  existing  organizations." 
\\rhat  this  meant  was  not  understood  then  and  can  not 
be  understood  now  ;  it  was  ambiguous  enough  to  satisfy 
everybody,  and  was  not  voted  against  by  anybody.  Mr. 
Garrison  tendered  the  olive  branch  by  moving  the  accept 
ance  and  publication  of  the  annual  report,  saying  it 
ought  to  be  circulated  through  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land.  Most  of  the  report  had  been  written  by  Mr. 
Birney.  It  gave  many  facts  to  show  that  abolitionism 
was  "  rapidly  becoming  a  part  of  the  religion  of  our 
country,"  quoting  the  abolition  resolutions  of  Methodist 
and  Free- Will  Baptist  conferences,  of  two  Presbyterian 
synods,  and  of  five  Congregational  associations.  The 
Connecticut  clergy  were  complimented.  "  The  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  in  the  Northern  States  is  rapidly  com 
ing  upon  abolition  ground.  In  six  out  of  sixteen  confer 
ences  there  is  already  a  majority  of  abolitionists,  and  in 
four  a  very  large  majority."  Thirty-five  pages  were  de 
voted  to  the  political  aspects  of  the  situation.  The  su 
premacy  of  the  laws  and  Constitution  was  implied  in  every 
page.  On  "  the  right  use  of  suffrage  "  the  report  said  : 

As  honest  and  determined  men  abolitionists  will  not  fail  sea 
sonably  to  exercise  this  right,  and  he  is  not  worthy  the  name  of 
an  abolitionist  who  docs  not  put  the  anti- slavery  qualification 
above  any  and  all  others  in  selecting  the  candidate  to  receive  his 
vote.  The  principle  of  using  our  suffrage  in  favor  of  emancipa 
tion  while  we  neither  organize  a  distinct  party  nor  attach  our 
selves  to  any  already  existing  is  vital  to  our  cause.  .  .  .  Every 
party  predilection  must  be  merged  or  the  cause  is  lost. 

That  Mr.  Garrison,  with  his  declared  views  of  the 
clergy,  the  Church,  the  laws,  the  Constitution,  and  voting, 


THE  SCHISM   OF  THE  GARRTSOXIAXS.  301 

should  indorse  the  report  without  reservation,  or  indorse 
it  at  all,  was  an  inconsistency  startling  to  persons  of  com 
mon  sense,  but  quite  to  be  expected  from  a  philosopher  of 
the  intuitive  school.  Such  a  one  acts  from  supposed 
divine  inspiration  at  the  moment ;  but  whether  Mr.  Gar 
rison  did  so  or  not,  in  this  instance  he  did  right.  He  r&- 
lapsed  after  his  return  to  Boston. 

The  "  no-government "  men  made  up  in  activity  what 
they  lacked  in  numbers.  While  refusing  for  themselves 
to  vote  at  the  ballot-box,  they  voted  in  conventions  and 
formed  coalitions  with  women  who  wished  to  vote  at  the 
ballot-box.  January  25,  1839,  H.  B.  Stanton  wrote  from 
Boston : 

An  effort  was  made  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Massachu 
setts  society,  which  adjourned  to-day,  to  make  its  annual  report 
and  its  action  subservient  to  the  non-resistant  movement,  and, 
through  the  votes  of  the  women  and  of  Lynn  and  Boston  it  suc 
ceeded. 

February  18th,  Mr.  Stanton  wrote  to  William  Goodell 
from  Haverhill,  Mass. : 

I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  show  your  letter  to  brothers  Phelps, 
George  Allen,  George  Russell,  O.  Scott,  N.  Colver,  and  a  large 
number  of  others,  and  they  highly  approve  its  sentiments.  They, 
with  you,  are  fully  of  the  opinion  that  it  is  high  time  to  take  a 
firm  stand  against  the  non-government  doctrine.  They  are  far 
from  regarding  it  merely  as  a  humbug. 

No  !  coming  out,  as  it  does,  attached  to  our  glorious  cause 
and  ushered  into  being  under  the  sanction  of  Brother  Garrison, 
it  will  be  subscribed  to  from  that  simply  by  hundreds  without 
examination.  But  though  great  evil  will  result  from  it,  yet, 
thank  Heaven,  the  practice  of  these  men  will  be  much  better 
than  their  theory. 

The  non-government  doctrine,  stripped  of  its  disguises,  is 
worse  than  Fanny  Wrightism,  and,  under  a  Gospel  garb,  it  is 
Fanny  Wrightism  with  a  white  frock  on.  It  goes  to  the  utter 
overthrow  of  all  order,  yea,  and  of  all  purity. 


302  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND  HIS  TIMES. 

When  carried  out  it  goes  not  only  for  a  community  of  goods 
but  a  community  of  wives. 

Strange  that  such  an  infidel  theory  should  find  votaries  in  New 
England  !  .  .  .  And  then  the  name  and  influence  of  the  ' ( Libera 
tor  "  and  its  editor  have  greatly  forwarded  its  destructive  ends. 

I  fully  concur  with  your  remarks  as  to  the  influence  of  praise 
upon  the  mind  of  Brother  Garrison.  It  has,  indeed,  bewildered 
him.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  self-confidence  with  which  this 
has  inspired  him  he  might  have  been  held  back  from  his  wild 
notions  of  government.  .  .  .  Brother  Garrison  is  now  using 
weapons  we  have  thoughtlessly  placed  in  his  hands,  and  the  cause 
we  love  is  feeling  the  wounds.  .  .  .  How  humiliating  to  his  ad 
miring  friends  that  we  are  compelled  to  say  he  has  departed  from 
the  standards  ! 

Same  to  same  : 

BOSTON,  April  8,  1839. 

.  .  .  You  will  see  by  the  last  "Liberator,"  containing  the 
letters  of  O.  Scott,  Birney,  and  myself,  the  state  of  things  here. 
We  wrere  compelled  to  say  thus  much  in  self-defense.  Brother 
Garrison  seems  sometimes  almost  reckless  of  the  truth  of  his 
statements  if  so  be  he  can  excite  prejudice  against  such  as  take 
ground  against  him  on  his  no-government  doctrine.  Our  cause 
in  this  region  is  in  a  sad  plight.  .  .  .  Garrison  told  Whittier  two 
or  three  days  since  that,  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  American 
Society,  he  should  move  to  amend  the  Constitution  by  striking 
out  all  which  relates  to  the  power  of  Congress,  ...  in  a  word, 
all  that  relates  to  political  and  governmental  action,  etc.  .  .  . 
After  this  alteration  who  would  remain  in  the  society  ?  Birney 
[Jay],  Phelps,  Scott,  Colver,  Allen,  the  Tappans,  Leavitt,  Whit- 
tier,  Weld,  E.  Wright,  et  id  genus  omne,  would  quit  it  instantly. 
Not  a  member  of  the  executive  committee  at  New  York  would 
remain,  I  presume.  ...  I  beg  you  to  notice  the  last  clause  in 
Birney's  letter  in  the  "Liberator,"  .  .  .  where  he  speaks  of  the 
anti- slavery  cause  in  New  England  being  greatly  embarrassed  by 
attaching  to  it  other  and  irrelevant  matters.  He  speaks  what  I 
know  to  be  true ;  and  as  to  separating  our  cause  from  these  wild 
ultraisms  —  non  -  government,  perfectionism,  anti-clergy,  anti- 
church,  anti-marriage,  anti-money,  etc. — I  agree  with  him  fully. 


THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISOXIAXS.          303 

And  I  wish  I  were  not  compelled  to  utter  what  I  religiously 
believe,  viz.,  that  W.  L.  Garrison,  H.  C.  Wright,  and  others  are 
determined  to  rule  or  ruin,  to  make  the  anti-slavery  cause,  and 
especially  the  associations,  subservient  to  their  ends  or  destroy 
the  latter.  Of  this  I  have  not  a  shadow  of  doubt.  .  .  .  Some 
men  are  fond  of  new  theories  simply  because  they  are  new.  Some 
have  taken  hold  of  abolitionism  merely  because  it  ministered  to 
their  appetite  for  intense  excitement.  Mobs,  etc.,  having  passed 
away,  the  present  excitement  on  that  subject  is  not  strong  enough 
for  them,  and  so  they  must  get  up  something  else. 

In  Massachusetts  the  breach  between  the  no-govern 
ment  faction  and  the  mass  of  the  abolitionists  was  rapidly 
widening.  In  December,  1838,  Henry  C.  Wright  pub 
lished  a  characteristic  document,  intended  no  doubt  as  an 
assault  upon  voting.  In  a  letter  of  December  23d  (G.  ii, 
253)  Garrison  wrote  of  him  : 

He  has  prepared  a  tract  on  human  governments  which  when 
published  will  doubtless  stir  up  the  feelings  of  community.  It 
shows  in  a  simple  and  lucid  manner  that  national  organizations 
as  now  constructed  are  essentially  anti- Christian. 

Edmund  Quincy  wrote  to  II.  C.  Wright,  December 
31st : 

I  received  your  missive,  full  of  combustible  matter  enough  to 
set  the  whole  United  States  mail  on  fire,  in  due  course.  I  was 
well  content  with  the  doctrine  therein  laid  down. 

The  voting  abolitionists  were  not  idle.  Some  anti- 
slavery  conventions  held  in  January  resolved  in  favor  of 
going  to  the  polls  and  voting,  and  recommended  to  the 
State  Anti-Slavery  Society  to  establish  a  weekly  paper  to 
sustain  this  policy.  Garrison  responded  with  his  custom 
ary  arrogance  and  insinuations  against  persons.  Charles 
T.  Torrey  replied  with  anger,  speaking  of  Garrison's 
"  brassy  brow."  Alanson  St.  Clair  pronounced  Garrison's 
references  to  himself  "  an  unprovoked  and  vile  attack  on 


304:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

one  you  professed  to  regard  as  a  friend,"  and  said  :  "  I 
shall  take  the  liberty  to  appeal  from  your  imperial  de 
cision." 

Amos  A.  Phelps  replied,  claiming  a  right  to  work  for 
the  cause  "  without  doing  it  through  your  paper  and  with 
out  coming  and  kneeling  devoutly  to  ask  your  holiness  * 
whether  I  may  do  so  or  not."  He  said  that  Mr.  Garrison's 
charges  were  natural  to  "  one  whose  overgrown  self-con 
ceit  had  brought  him  into  the  belief  that  his  mighty  self 
was  abolition  incarnate." 

In  another  letter  to  Mr.  Garrison  Mr.  Phelps  said : 
"  You  seem  still  to  be  possessed  with  the  old  idea  that  you 
and  your  paper  are  abolition  incarnate,  so  that  no  man 
can  dislike  or  reject  either  without  disliking  and  reject 
ing  abolition."  (See  G.  ii,  270.) 

John  Le  Bosquet  thought  Mr.  Garrison  might  be  "  so 
elated  with  his  elevation  as  to  think  that  he  was  monarch 
of  all  he  surveyed."  Daniel  Wise  reported  Mr.  Garrison 
to  have  spoken  "  as  if  he  were  whip-master-general  and 
supreme  judge  of  all  abolitionists,  as  though  he  wore  the 
triple  crown  and  wielded  an  irresponsible  scepter  over  all 
the  embattled  hosts  of  anti-slavery  troops."  George  Allen 
declared  Mr.  Garrison  resolved  "  to  cripple  the  influence 
of  all  who  will  not  come  under  the  yoke  which  he  has 
bent  for  their  necks."  Benjamin  Lundy,  who  had  for 
several  years  lost  his  confidence  in  Mr.  Garrison,  wrote  in 
his  paper  of  the  course  of  the  "  Liberator "  as  "  erratic 
and  dogmatical,"  "  whimsical  and  unreflecting,"  and  of 
its  editor  as  arrogant.  Mr.  Garrison  answered  by  charg 
ing  Lundy  with  being  "  jealous  and  envious." 

February  7,  1839,  the  first  number  of  the  "  Massachu 
setts  Abolitionist,"  a  paper  "  devoted  exclusively  to  the 
discussion  of  slavery,"  appeared.  In  the  first  three  months 

*  This  was  an  allusion  to  the  nickname  of  Pope,  commonly  applied  to 
Mr.  Garrison  in  derision  of  his  ejroism. 


THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISOXIAXS.          305 

the  subscribers  to  it  outnumbered  those  to  the  "  Libera 
tor."  March  26th,  the  Massachusetts  Society  met  in  Bos 
ton.  Messrs.  Birney  and  Lewis  Tappan  were  present  from 
the  National  Committee.  Mr.  Tappan  advised  a  division 
of  the  society  into  two  parts.  Mr.  Birney  approved  the 
establishment  of  the  newspaper,  and  declared  that  under 
the  constitution  of  the  national  society  every  member 
who  was  a  legal  voter  was  morally  bound  to  go  to  the 
polls,  and  if  he  had  conscientious  scruples  against  so  doing 
ought  to  leave  the  society.  He  said  also  that  the  cause 
ought  to  be  relieved  of  all  the  extraneous  questions  which 
had  been  connected  with  it  during  the  past  year  or  two. 
Thejneeting  settled  no  differences. 

After  his  return  to  New  York  in  April,  Mr.  Birney 
prepared  "  A  Letter  on  the  Political  Obligations  of  Abo 
litionists."  It  appeared  May  2d  in  the  "  Emancipator " 
over  his  signature  and  afterward  in  a  pamphlet  of  twelve 
pages.  This  was  generally  regarded  as  an  unofficial  dec 
laration  by  the  National  Committee,  and  excited  the  most 
lively  interest  in  the  abolition  world.  Its  sub-title  was 
"  View  of  the  Constitution  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  as  connected  with  the  '  No- Government '  Ques 
tion."  It  was  an  expansion  of  his  views  expressed  at  the 
recent  Boston  meeting  and  which  had  been  misrepre 
sented  in  the  "  Liberator."  A  very  brief  statement  of 
points  made,  with  a  few  extracts,  must  suffice  for  our 
notice  of  this  closely  reasoned  and  powerful  tract  of  the 
times.  "  The  object  of  the  American  Society  was  the  en 
tire  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States.  The  means 
for  effecting  it  were  :  " 

1.  The  admission  that  each  slave  State  has  the  exclu 
sive  right  to  legislate  on  its  abolition. 

2.  Arguments  against  slavery. 

3.  "In  a  constitutional  way  to  influence  Congress  to 
put  an  end  to  the  domestic  slave  trade ;  and 


306  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

4.  To  abolish  slavery  in  the  Territories  and  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia ;  and 

5.  To  prevent  the  extension  of  slavery  to  new  States. 
Under  the  terms  of  the  constitution  of  the  society  no 

person  can  be  a  member  of  it  who  does  not  consent  to  the 
above  principles. 

Influencing  the  action  of  Congress  "  in  a  constitutional 
way  "  implies  of  necessity  the  use  of  the  elective  franchise. 

The  declaration  of  sentiments,  signed  by  the  makers 
of  the  constitution  of  the  society,  contains  the  following 
passage : 

"We  also  maintain  that  there  are  at  the  present  time  the  high 
est  obligations  resting  upon  the  people  of  the  free  States  to  re 
move  slavery  by  moral  and  political  action  as  prescribed  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

The  constitution  of  the  Massachusetts  Society  binds 
the  members  "to  endeavor  by  all  means  sanctioned  by 
law,  humanity,  and  religion,"  etc. 

In  1834  the  editor  of  the  "  Liberator  "  voted  in  person 
and  strenuously  upheld  in  his  columns  the  propriety  of 
abolitionists  carrying  out  their  principles  at  the  ballot- 
box.  The  constitutions  of  none  of  the  State  societies  are 
inconsistent  with  political  action.  Xo  opposition  worthy 
of  mention  was  made  to  this  means  of  furthering  aboli 
tion  until  recently.  He  says  : 

Within  the  last  twelve  or  eighteen  months,  it  is  believed  after 
efforts,  some  successful  some  not,  had  been  begun  to  affect  the 
elections,  and  while  the  most  indefatigable  exertions  were  being 
made  by  many  of  our  influential,  intelligent,  and  liberal  friends 
to  convince  the  great  body  of  the  abolitionists  of  the  necessity — 
the  indispensable  necessity — of  breaking  away  from  their  old 
" parties "  and  uniting  in  the  use  of  the  elective  franchise  for  the 
advancement  of  the  cause  of  human  freedom,  ...  at  this  very 
time,  and  mainly,  too,  in  that  part  of  the  country  where  political 
action  had  been  most  successful,  and  whence  from  its  promise  of 


THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISONIANS.  3QT 

soon  "being  wholly  triumphant*  great  encouragement  was  de 
rived  by  abolitionists  everywhere,  a  sect  has  arisen  in  our  midst 
where  members  regard  it  as  of  religious  obligation  in  no  case  to 
exercise  the  elective  franchise. 

This  persuasion  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  tenet  which  it  is  be 
lieved  they  have  embraced,  that  as  Christians  have  the  precepts 
of  the  Gospel  to  direct,  and  the  spirit  of  God  to  guide  them,  all 
human  governments,  as  necessarily  including  the  idea  of  force  to 
secure  obedience,  are  not  only  superfluous,  but  unlawful  encroach 
ments  on  the  Divine  government  as  ascertained  from  the  sources 
above  mentioned. 

Therefore  they  refuse  to  do  anything  voluntarily  by  which 
they  would  be  considered  as  acknowledging  the  lawful  existence 
of  human  governments.  Denying  to  civil  governments  the  right 
to  use  force,  they  easily  deduce  that  family  governments  have  no 
such  right.  Thus  they  would  withhold  from  parents  any  power 
of  personal  chastisement  or  restraint  for  the  correction  of  their 
children.  They  carry  out  to  tbe  full  extent  the  "non-resistance  " 
theory.  To  the  first  ruffian  who  would  demand  our  purse  or 
oust  us  from  our  houses  they  are  to  be  unconditionally  surren 
dered  unless  moral  suasion  be  found  sufficient  to  induce  him  to 
decline  from  his  purpose.  Our  wives,  our  daughters,  our  sisters, 
our  mothers,  we  are  to  see  set  upon  by  the  most  brutal  without 
any  effort  on  our  part  except  argument  to  defend  them  1  And 
even  they  themselves  are  forbidden  to  use  in  defense  of  their 
purity  such  powers  as  God  has  endowed  them  with  for  its  pro 
tection  if  resistance  should  be  attended  with  injury  or  destruction 
to  the  assailant  ! 

In  short,  the  "no-government"  doctrines,  as  they  are  be 
lieved  now  to  be  embraced,  seem  to  strike  at  the  root  of  the 
social  structure,  and  tend,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge  of  their 
tendency,  to  throw  society  into  entire  confusion  and  to  renew, 
under  the  sanction  of  religion,  scenes  of  anarchy  and  license  that 
have  generally  heretofore  been  the  offspring  of  the  rankest  infi 
delity  and  irreligion  ! 

*  John  Quincy  Adams  and  several  other  members  of  Congress  owed 
their  election  to  abolition  voters,  who  held  the  balance  of  power  in  their 
respective  districts. 


303  JAMES  G.  BIHXEY  AND  I11S  TIMES. 

To  the  supposed  objection  that  non-voting  persons 
had  joined  the  society  and  were  still  members  of  it,  Mr. 
Birney  answered  that,  under  the  constitution,  anybody 
who  chose  might  join  and  no  method  of  expulsion  had 
been  provided.  In  this  state  of  things  the  honorable 
course  for  no -government  men  was  either  to  move  to 
amend  the  constitution  or  withdraw  from  membership. 
To  the  claim  that  voters  and  no-government  men  could 
get  along  together  quietly  he  answered  : 

But  is  this  really  so  ?  Is  the  difference  between  those  who 
seek  to  abolish  any  and  every  government  of  human  institution 
and  those  who  prefer  any  government  to  a  state  of  things  in 
which  every  one  may  do  what  seemeth  good  in  his  own  eyes  .  .  . 
so  small  that  they  can  act  harmoniously  under  the  same  organiza 
tion  ?  When,  in  obedience  to  the  principles  of  the  society,  I  go 
to  the  polls  and  there  call  on  my  neighbors  to  unite  with  me  in 
electing  to  Congress  men  who  are  in  favor  of  human  rights  I  am 
met  by  a  no-government  abolitionist  inculcating  on  them  the 
doctrine  that  Congress  has  no  rightful  authority  at  all  to  act  in 
the  premises,  how  can  we  proceed  together  ?  When  I  am  ani 
mating  my  fellow-citizens  to  aid  me  in  infusing  into  the  Govern 
ment  salutary  influences  which  shall  put  an  end  to  all  oppression 
my  no-government  brother  calls  out  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  "  All 
governments  are  of  the  devil,"  where  is  our  harmony  ? 

lie  denied  that  no-government  men  could  consistently 
petition  Congress  or  advise  people,  who  believed  in  vot 
ing  how  to  vote,  comparing  this  last  to  angels  advising 
devils  how  to  sin  for  the  glory  of  God.  He  concluded : 

But  it  is  high  time  that  something  was  done  to  bring  this 
subject  directly  before  the  great  body  of  the  abolitionists,  in 
order  that  they  may  relieve  their  cause  from  an  incubus  that  has 
so  mightily  oppressed  it  in  some  parts  of  the  country  during  the 
last  year.  It  is  in  vain  to  think  of  succeeding  in  emancipation 
without  the  co-operation  of  the  great  mass  of  the  intelligent 
mind  of  the  nation.  This  can  be  attracted  only  by  the  reason 
ableness,  the  religion,  of  our  enterprise.  To  multiply  causes  of 


THE  SCHISM   OF  THE  GARRISOXIAXS.  309 

repulsion  is  but  to  drive  it  from  us  and  insure  our  own  defeat — 
to  consign  the  slave  to  perdurable  chains,  our  country  to  imper 
ishable  disgrace.  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY. 

Of  this  essay,  the  tone  was  judicial  and  dispassionate. 
Mr.  Garrison  was  not  mentioned  by  name.  The  only 
allusion  to  him  was  as  "  editor  of  the  '  Liberator.' "  But 
he  answered  in  a  pamphlet  twice  as  long  as  Mr.  Birney's. 
The  allusion  to  him  was  noticed  as  follows  : 

I  am  quoted  by  Mr.  Birney  as  ' '  having  set  the  example  of 
voting  for  a  professed  abolitionist  and  encouraging  others  to  do 
the  same."  As  to  this  citation,  cui  lotw?  I  humbly  conceive 
that  it  concerns  no  man,  or  body  of  men,  to  know  how  many  or 
how  few  times  I  have  voted  since  the  adoption  of  the  anti-slavery 
constitution ;  or  whether  I  have,  or  have  not,  changed  my  views 
of  politics  within  a  few  years.* 

Mr.  Birney  had  carefully  and  fairly  stated  the  tenets 
of  the  new  sect  as  to  human  and  divine  governments,  but 
in  his  sub-title  had  used  the  phrase  "  no-government  ques 
tion,"  and  had  applied  the  same  hyphened  adjective  to  the 
words  "  scheme,"  "  enterprise,"  and  once  only  to  the  word 
"  party."  Mr.  Garrison  answers  in  the  following  strain  : 

He  calls  us  a  "  no-government  "  party.  He  might  as  honestly 
style  us  a  banditti.  .  .  .  We  deny  the  accusation.  We  relig 
iously  hold  to  government — a  strong,  a  righteous,  a  perfect  gov 
ernment,  a  government  which  is  indestructible,  which  is  of 
Heaven,  not  of  men.  .  .  .  How  monstrous,  then,  the  representa 
tion,  that  we  are  "  for  destroying  all  government  ? 

In  such  verbal  cavils  and  simulated  rage,  Mr.  Garrison 
took  pleasure.  His  want  of  logical  power  struck  Von 
Hoist,  the  German  historian  of  this  country,  as  "  wonder- 

*  Up  to  1835,  Mr.  Garrison  had  not  only  voted,  but  advocated  the 
formation  of  an  anti-slavery  political  party.  (See  testimony  of  Whittier 
and  other  proofs  given  in  the  "  Second  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts 
Abolition  Society.") 


310  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY   AXD   HIS  TIMES. 

ful,"  nor  did  lie  let  slip  the  opportunity  for  writing  about 
himself.  His  answer  bristles  with  capital  Ps  and  my  and 
me.  In  the  last  four  sentences  of  one  paragraph  there 
are  nine  of  these  croppings-out  of  egotism.  The  last  sen 
tence  is :  "  But  how  coldly,  how  invidiously,  how  like  an 
abhorred  Samaritan,  have  I  been  treated  by  many  in  the 
anti  -  slavery  ranks,  on  account  of  my  religious  opin 
ions  !  " 

The  feelings  of  the  New  York  leaders  toward  Mr. 
Garrison  were  the  natural  result  of  his  waywardness,  un- 
reliableness,  splenetic  temper,  jealousy  of  others,  schem 
ing  disposition,  and  arrogant  vanity,  and  not  at  all  of  his 
"  religious  opinions."  Such  misrepresentation  mast  have 
sorely  tried  the  Christian  patience  of  the  orthodox  Lewis 
Tappan,  who  had  done  all  in  his  power  to  get  the  much 
younger  Garrison  to  work  kindly  in  abolition  traces ! 
Again  he  writes : 

It  is  quite  remarkable  that  some  of  those  who  have  been 
foremost  in  protesting  against  being  reckoned  my  followers,  .  .  . 
who  have  been  unwilling  that  I  should  be  regarded  as  the  mouth 
piece  of  the  Anti- Slavery  Society  in  any  sense,  who  have  repelled 
the  slightest  intimation  from  the  enemies  of  abolition,  that  the 
society  is  responsible  for  the  sayings  and  doings  of  the  "Libera 
tor  " — I  say,  it  is  quite  remarkable  that  all  at  once,  in  the  eyes 
of  those  persons,  I  have  become  an  official  organ,  an  unerring 
oracle,  the  magnus  Apollo  of  the  whole  land. 

To  impute  to  Mr.  Birney  such  an  estimate  of  Mr.  Gar 
rison  was  an  inference  much  too  wide  for  the  premises. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Garrison's  argument  for 
"  non-resistance,"  drawn  from  the  advice  given  to  slaves 
by  the  national  society,  not  to  vindicate  their  rights  by 
physical  force,  meaning  insurrection.  If  every  man  who 
shudders  at  the  massacres  of  a  servile  war,  thinking  peace 
ful  abolition  attainable,  or  advises  unarmed  Ireland  not  to 
declare  war  against  the  British  Empire,  may  be  held  to  be 


THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISOXIAXS.  31 1 

a  non-resistant  in  any  and  all  circumstances,  it  is  only  in 
that  "  wonderful "  Garrisonian  logic. 

There  are  passages  of  plausible  reasoning  in  the  answer, 
and  Mr.  Birney  might  have  replied  to  them,  but  they  were 
seasoned  with  so  many  epithets,  such  as  "  unfair,"  "  im 
proper,"  "libelous,"  "absurd,"  "folly  closely  allied  to 
cool  effrontery,  "ridiculous,"  "  a  disorganizing  spirit," 
"untrue,"  that  a  reply  was  out  of  the  question.  Mr. 
Birney  never  bandied  epithets.  Besides,  Mr.  Garrison's 
admissions  made  a  reply  unnecessary  for  intelligent  read 
ers.  He  said : 

As  men,  as  citizens,  as  Christians,  we  confess  that  we  have 
advocated  the  heaven-originated  cause  of  non-resistance,  .  .  . 
but  not  as  abolitionists*  .  .  .  Non-resistance  is  destined  to  pour 
new  life  blood  into  the  veins  of  abolition  .  .  .  though  not  ne 
cessarily  connected  with  it. 

An  example  of  the  peculiar  boldness  of  Mr.  Garrison 
in  controversy  is  his  assertion  (see  page  35  of  pamphlet) 
that,  at  its  annual  meeting  in  1838,  the  national  society 
had  adopted  a  resolution  appointing  a  committee  of  nine 
to  prepare  a  declaration  of  the  judgment  of  the  society 
"  concerning  the  common  error  that  our  enterprise  is  of  a 
political  and  not  religions  character."  Mr.  Garrison's 
very  positive  assertion  is  not  sustained  by  the  published 
minutes  of  the  meeting  (page  16).  The  resolution  was 
offered,  but  does  not  appear  to  have  been  adopted.  No 
such  committee  ever  met ;  and  no  such  declaration  was 
ever  prepared  or  presented.  Mr.  Garrison  was  one  of  the 
nine  members  named  to  constitute  the  committee,  and 
should  have  known  these  facts. 

*  This  subtle  distinction  between  what  Mr.  Garrison  did  as  an  aboli 
tionist  and  what  as  a  private  gentleman,  reminds  one  of  the  distinction 
made  in  the  "Mikado"  between  Poohbah's  action  in  the  different  capaci 
ties  of  Lord  High  Treasurer  and  Lord  Chief  Justice, 


312  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY   AND  HIS  TIMES. 

The  cliasm  between  the  no-government  faction  and 
the  leaders  of  the  constitutional  movement  was  too  broad 
and  deep  to  be  bridged.  Separation  was  inevitable. 
When  and  how  it  should  be  effected  were  the  only  ques 
tions.  Instead  of  quietly  withdrawing,  the  no-govern 
ment  men  decided  to  seize  upon  the  organization  of  the 
national  society.  This  was  made  easy  by  the  provision 
of  its  constitution,  which  in  effect  enabled  any  one  to  vote 
as  a  member  who  would  sign  that  instrument  and  con 
tribute  any  sum,  however  small,  to  the  funds  of  the  so 
ciety.  All  that  was  necessary  was  to  get  voters  enough. 
The  no-government  men  decided  to  do  this  at  the  anni 
versary  meeting  in  May,  1840.  The  practical  work  of 
this  movement  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  that  active  no- 
government  man  and  Communist  John  A.  Collins,  with 
Oliver  Johnson  as  his  assistant.  Mr.  Collins  raised  a  fund 
and  chartered  a  steamboat  for  the  cheap  or  gratuitous 
transportation  of  their  voters  from  Boston  to  New  York. 
In  regard  to  the  number,  the  "  Liberator  "  afterward  said  : 
"  On  making  an  enumeration,  it  appeared  there  were  about 
four  hundred  and  fifty  anti-slavery  men  and  women  in  our 
company,  of  wThom  about  four  hundred  were  from  Massa 
chusetts.  Probably  one  hundred  went  by  other  routes." 

Goodell,  in  his  history  "  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery," 
says  of  this : 

This  would  make  550  in  all.  The  proceedings  afterward 
showed  only  1,008  recorded  votes  from  all  in  attendance  from 
all  the  States.  Of  these,  Mr.  Garrison's  rally  of  550  would,  if 
unanimous,  secure  a  majority  of  92,  without  any  votes  from  any 
of  the  other  States.  Yet  the  business  to  be  transacted  was  that 
of  a  society  scattered  in  all  the  free  States,  and  numbering,  per 
haps,  one-  or  two  hundred  thousand,  the  majority  of  whom  antici 
pated  nothing  of  what  was  going  forward;  and  if  they  had 
known,  could  have  had  no  opportunity  of  attending. 

The  character  of  the  Garrison  raid  in  1840  can  be  in- 


THE  SCHISM  OF  THE  GARRISOXIANS.  313 

ferred  from  the  number  of  Massachusetts  members  of  the 
national  society  in  the  seven  years  of  its  existence.  In 
the  respective  years  between  1834  and  1840  inclusive,  the 
delegations  from  that  State  numbered  as  follows :  6,  22, 
26,  18,  22,  118,  and  550. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  no-government  men 
captured  the  machinery  *  of  the  national  society.  They 
captured  nothing  else.  The  pro-government  men  retired 
quietly.  Some  of  them  formed  a  new  national  society; 
but  the  abolition  cause  had  already  outgrown  the  crude 
methods  of  its  earlier  days  and  was  becoming  a  part  of 
the  political  life  of  the  nation.  Outside  of  Massachusetts 
and  in  New  York  and  the  great  West,  among  men  who 
knew  little  and  cared  less  about  the  dissensions  in  and 
around  Boston,  who  had  never  seen  the  "  Liberator  "  or 
its  editor,  there  was  rapidly  extending  a  sentiment  that 
the  existing  political  parties  could  not  defend  the  republic 
against  the  slave  power  and  that  a  necessity  existed  for 
laying  the  foundations  of  a  party  broad  as  the  Constitu 
tion  itself  and  enduring  as  the  republic.  Before  describ 
ing  the  growth  of  this  new  party  we  will  devote  a  chapter 
to  the  non-government  sect  and  its  leader. 

*  This  they  accomplished  by  a  coalition  with  women  suffragists. 
The  real  issue  of  Nihilism  versus  Government  and  Law  was  adroitly  kept 
in  the  background. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

"  THE   SMALL  EXTREME  WING." 

IN  his  remarkable  work  on  the  "  Constitutional  His 
tory  of  the  United  States,"  Prof.  Von  Hoist,  the  German 
historian,  says :  "  The  abolitionists  generally  were  held 
responsible  for  every  word  uttered  by  Garrison,  who,  after 
all,  was  only  the  leader  of  the  small  extreme  wing" 

In  its  annual  report  (page  14)  for  1851,  the  Glasgow 
(Scotland)  Female  New  Anti-Slavery  Association,  speak 
ing  of  the  relative  number  of  the  Garrisonians  to  the  whole 
number  of  American  abolitionists,  says :  "  Mr.  Garnet 
[Henry  Highland  Garnet,  the  eloquent  colored  preacher] 
unhesitatingly  declared  that  they  do  not  amount  to  one 
in  one  hundred  and  fifty." 

The  Rev.  John  Guthrie,  of  Scotland,  in  a  pamphlet 
(1851)  on  the  subject,  said:  "We  stated  last  week,  in 
order  to  keep  thoroughly  within  bounds,  that  the  Garri 
sonians,  as  compared  with  the  evangelical  abolitionists  in 
America,  are  not  one  in  ten" 

In  a  letter  of  July,  1839,  Lewis  Tappan  speaks  of  "  "\V. 
L.  Garrison  and  his  clique"  and  in  August  of  the  same 
year  Amos  A.  Phelps  wrote  from  Boston  :  "  Mrs.  Chap 
man's  influence  in  this  city  is  dead.  At  the  last  meeting 
of  the  Boston  Female  Society,  on  a  test  vote,  she  could 
muster  but  eighteen  colored  people  in  all,  and  six  of  the 
eighteen  were  members  of  her  own  family.  The  same  is 
true  to  a  considerable  extent  in  regard  to  Garrison.  The 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME  WING."  315 

sober,  serious,  prayerful,  and  religious  abolitionists  are 
mostly  with  us  in  the  city.  The  weight  of  character  is 
with  us  in  the  country."  (MSS.) 

In  1839  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society  (old 
organization)  declared  in  a  manifesto  the  doubt  of  its 
managers  "  whether  the  one  hundredth  part  of  its  mem 
bers  held  the  peculiar  views  of  Mr.  Garrison.17  (Goodell, 
page  462.) 

The  son  of  Samuel  Lewis,  the  eloquent  Ohio  abolition 
ist,  in  his  biography  of  his  father  (1857)  speaks  of  "that 
largest  portion  of  the  abolitionists  who  acted  with  the 
Liberty  party."  He  says  also :  "  The  fact  was  that  the 
Garrison  party  formed  the  smallest  segment  of  the  aboli 
tionists;  but  the  opponents  of  the  abolitionists,  either 
from  ignorance  or  convenience,  found  it  the  easiest  method 
to  confound  the  two  and  lay  the  opprobrious  character  of 
disunionists  upon  all,"  etc.  (page  339). 

In  a  pamphlet  entitled  "Truth  vindicated"  (1883), 
A.  T.  Rankin,  of  Ohio,  an  old  abolitionist  and  brother  of 
John  Rankin,  says :  "  Mr.  Garrison  did  some  good  in  the 
cause  of  anti-slavery,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  he  did 
not  do  it  more  damage  than  good.  .  .  .  On  page  119  of 
his  book  of  selections  are  recorded  ten  curses  he  hurled  at 
the  Government  of  the  LTnited  States.  For  bitterness  of 
hate  they  are  rarely  equaled.  Any  lover  of  his  country 
who  reads  them  will  not  wonder  that  good  men  fled  from 
him.  .  .  .  When  the  Anti-Slavery  party  divided,  only  a 
fragment  adhered  to  him." 

If  Mr.  Garrison  had  not  possessed  a  peculiar  faculty 
for  gaining  the  personal  friendship  of  the  few  whom 
he  wished  to  conciliate,  he  would  have  had  no  follow 
ing  whatever.  Miss  Martineau  says  of  his  conversa 
tion  :  "  It  has  none  of  the  severity,  the  harshness,  the 
bad  taste  of  his  writing."  Throughout  his  career  a  few 
persons  of  wealth  adhered  to  him,  furnished  him  with 


316  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

money  when  necessary,  and  the  poet  Whittier,  though 
often  obliged  to  dissent  from  and  rebuke  him,  always  con 
tinued  to  him  his  friendship.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
the  gentle  Quaker  Lucretia  Mott.  To  his  friends  he 
knew  not  how  to  stint  his  praise.  He  wrote  verses  in 
their  honor  and  commended  them  in  his  speeches.  Some 
of  them  reciprocated,  especially  Quincy  and  Wendell 
Phillips,  and  the  clique  became  known  as  "  the  mutual 
admiration  society." 

But  Mr.  Garrison  had  never  been  able  to  gain  the  con 
fidence  of  the  public  or  of  abolitionists  generally.  His 
first  newspaper,  the  one  at  Xewburyport,  had  failed  partly 
because  of  his  reckless  personal  attacks  on  eminent  men  in 
the  State.  He  had  been  rebuked  in  the  newspapers  of 
Boston  in  1827,  because,  although  he  had  resided  there 
but  six  months  and  was  an  unknown  and  very  young  man, 
he  had  had  "  the  impudence  "  to  appear  in  a  Federal  party 
congressional  caucus,  composed  of  prominent  citizens  and 
party  leaders,  and  nominate  before  nominations  were  called 
for  a  successor  to  Daniel  Webster.  At  Bennington  the 
"  Gazette  "  nicknamed  him  "  Lloyd  Garrulous  "  and  said 
of  him  :  "  He  is  withal  a  great  egotist,  and  when  talking 
of  himself  displays  the  pert  loquacity  of  a  blue  jay." 

In  1829  he  made  a  speech  at  Boston,  and  the  "  Trav 
eler  "  of  that  city  described  him  as  "  of  quite  a  youthful 
appearance  and  habited  in  a  suit  of  black,  with  his  neck 
bare  and  a  broad  linen  collar  spread  over  that  of  his 
coat." 

When  in  Baltimore  he  wrote  the  libel  on  his  townsman 
and  former  acquaintance  Francis  Todd,  for  which  he  was 
indicted  and  sentenced  to  pay  fifty  dollars  and  costs,  he 
incurred  the  blame  of  all  judicious  persons  who  knew  the 
facts.  Mr.  Allen,  of  Newburyport,  under  whom  he  had 
served  his  apprenticeship  and  who  knew  Mr.  Todd, 
"  thought  that  in  assailing  Todd  he  had  stepped  aside  to 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME   WING."  317 

wound  those  who  were  not  and  never  would  be  guilty  of 
joining  in  the  traffic,  and  that  his  charge  had  been  based 
on  vague  rumor,  hasty  conversation,  and  scattered  facts." 
(G.  i,  185.) 

Moses  Sheppard,  an  anti-slavery  Quaker,  resident  in 
Baltimore,  was  still  more  severe.  He  said  that  Garrison 
"  had  promulgated  statements  utterly  destitute  of  the 
slightest  foundation  in  truth  in  relation  to  a  transaction 
of  which,  as  it  took  place  at  his  very  door,  the  most  care 
less  inquiry  would  have  supplied  him  with  the  correct  de 
tails."  (See  his  pamphlet,  1834.) 

That  the  anti-slavery  Quakers  of  Baltimore  agreed  with 
Mr.  Sheppard  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  not  one  of  them 
came  forward  to  relieve  Mr.  Garrison  from  imprisonment, 
though  he  lay  in  jail  forty-nine  days  and  until  Arthur 
Tappan  paid  the  small  fine. 

In  the  "Genius"  for  May,  1832,  Benjamin  Lundy,  in 
answering  an  attack  made  on  him  in  the  "Liberator," 
gave  his  opinion  of  Garrison  in  the  following  language : 
"  His  course  is  sometimes  rather  headlong  and  reckless. 
When  mounted  on  his  favorite  hobby,  scorning  to  touch 
the  reins  and  leaning  forward  with  his  cap  extended  in 
one  hand  and  a  barbed  goad  in  the  other  (to  say  nothing 
of  the  rowels  at  his  heels),  he  thinks  of  neither  rocks  nor 
quagmires,  but  rides  as  though  he  would  distance  the 
winds.  It  is  true  he  may  be  safe  in  pursuing  the  path 
that  others  have  beaten" 

The  pressing  need  of  another  anti-slavery  newspaper 
in  1831  would  have  made  the  "  Liberator  "  a  success  from 
the  first  if  its  editor  had  abstained  from  sensational  per 
sonalities  and  indiscriminate  vituperation.  Remonstrances 
were  unavailing,  and  the  paper  was  obliged  to  depend  for 
its  small  circulation  nearly  altogether  upon  the  colored 
people.  In  1842,  eleven  years  after  its  first  number,  Mr. 
Garrison,  writing  of  the  "  Liberator  "  and  its  want  of  sue- 


318  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

cess,  said  that  it  had  "  sunk  one  or  two  thousand  dollars 
per  annum  over  and  above  its  receipts."  (G.  ii,  332.) 

In  its  whole  course  the  "  Liberator,"  it  is  said,  never 
paid  expenses.  As  early  as  1832  Arthur  Tappan  wanted 
Garrison  to  employ  himself  in  promoting  the  education  of 
colored  youth.  (G.  i,  313.) 

In  1833  a  proposition  had  been  made  to  merge  the 
"Liberator"  in  the  "Philadelphia  World,"  and  later  the 
national  executive  committee  had  suggested  merging  it  in 
the  "  Emancipator."  In  1832,  when  Garrison  was  about 
to  sail  for  England,  he  made  himself  a  laughing-stock  by 
having  himself  locked  up  for  three  days  at  New  Haven 
and  as  long  at  New  York  to  prevent  the  colonizationists 
from  abducting  and  destroying  him  !  The  role  he  played 
in  England  was  that  of  a  reformer  who  had  narrowly  es 
caped  becoming  the  victim  of  a  murderous  plot.  A  pretty 
full  account  of  this  pretended  panic  is  given  in  the  biog 
raphy  of  him  by  his  sons.  Before  December,  1833,  be 
tween  twenty-five  and  thirty  abolition  newspapers  had  been 
started  in  the  Northern  States,  and  none  of  them,  it  is 
believed,  imitated  the  style  peculiar  to  the  "  Liberator." 
That  paper  was  regarded  by  abolitionists  generally  as  a 
fire-ship  in  the  abolition  fleet,  unmanageable,  and  dan 
gerous  to  its  friends  rather  than  to  the  enemy,  and  its 
editor  had  the  reputation  of  being  erratic  and  without 
judgment.  This  state  of  opinion  is  clearly  indicated  in 
Lewis  Tappan's  speech  before  the  convention  that  or 
ganized  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  December, 
1833.  In  it  he  said  :  "  There  is  good  evidence  to  believe 
that  many  professed  friends  of  abolition  would  have  been 
here  had  they  not  been  afraid  that  the  name  of  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  would  be  inserted  prominently  in  our  pro 
ceedings."  (G.  i,  402.)  (See  also  G.  i,  457,  for  Lewis 
Tappan's  letter  of  January  2,  1835.) 

The  formation  of  a  national  society  had  been  called  for 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME  WING."  319 

since  1830  by  the  abolition  sentiment  of  the  country,  and 
Mr.  Garrison  had  sought  to  take  the  initiative  by  making 
a  motion,  at  the  meeting  of  the  New  England  Anti- Slav 
ery  Society  in  January,  1833,  to  authorize  the  managers 
to  call  a  convention  for  the  purpose  ;  but  no  call  was  is 
sued,  the  managers  becoming  aware,  probably,  that  it 
would  not  be  responded  to.  The  call  was  issued  in  Octo 
ber  by  the  officers  of  the  New  York  City  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety.  It  had  not  been  shown  to  Mr.  Garrison  nor  had 
he  been  asked  to  sign  it.  Both  Lewis  Tappan,  in  his  life 
of  his  brother  Arthur,  and  William  Goodell  in  his  history, 
narrated  the  facts  relating  to  the  call  for  the  convention, 
and  neither  of  them  mentions  or  alludes  to  any  connection 
of  Mr.  Garrison  therewith.  Every  precaution  was  taken 
by  the  men  who  called  the  convention  to  prevent  Mr.  Gar 
rison  from  obtaining  undue  prominence  in  its  proceed 
ings.  He  was  not  made  one  of  the  officers  nor  placed  on 
the  committee  on  credentials  nor  made  chairman  of  any 
committee.  His  friend,  E.  B.  Hall,  was  indignant  when 
he  found  that  Garrison  was  not  to  be  one  of  the  per 
manent  officers  of  the  society,  and  demanded  that  if  there 
was  no  office  for  Garrison  to  fill,  "  one  ought  to  be  and 
must  ~be  made"  (G.  i,  415.) 

Under  this  pressure  the  office  of  secretary  of  foreign 
correspondence  was  created  and  Garrison  elected  to  it; 
but  he  was  soon  informed  that  his  official  "  letters  must 
first  be  submitted  to  the  executive  committee."  The  pro 
ject,  too,  of  discontinuing  the  "  Liberator "  was  again 
suggested.  (  G.  i,  415.) 

Mr.  Garrison's  feelings  were  deeply  wounded,  and  he 
promptly  resigned  the  office.  No  one  conversant  with 
anti-slavery  history  and  familiar  with  the  proceedings  of 
conventions  can  look  over  the  minutes  of  the  convention 
of  1833  without  rejecting  the  thesis  so  stoutly  maintained 
by  the  Garrisonian  writers  that  Mr.  Garrison  was  the 


320  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

founder  of  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society.  A  single 
fact  condemns  it.  The  constitution  formed  was  in  direct 
contradiction  to  Mr.  Garrison's  declared  opinions  on  the 
Federal  Constitution.  Our  view  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
from  1833  to  its  disruption  in  1840,  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  never  elected  Mr.  Garrison  either  presi 
dent  or  one  of  the  many  vice-presidents  or  secretary  or 
member  of  the  executive  committee.  He  rose  no  higher 
than  to  be  one  of  the  managers  for  Massachusetts.  At 
the  seven  public  anniversaries  of  the  society  held  during 
the  same  period,  he  appeared  but  twice  on  the  platform, 
once  to  make  a  speech  of  twelve  lines,  and  once  to  make  a 
motion  and  a  speech  which  is  reported  in  four  lines.  (1st 
Rep.,  16 ;  5th  Rep.,  18.)  In  the  hundreds  of  pamphlets, 
newspapers,  magazines,  almanacs,  records,  and  reports  of 
the  society,  it  is  barely  possible  to  find  Mr.  Garrison's 
name.  In  the  annual  report  of  1836  it  appears  in  neces 
sary  connection  with  the  Boston  mob  of  1835,  but  without 
commendation  either  of  the  "  Liberator  "  or  the  methods 
of  its  editor.  In  those  days  it  was  an  open  secret  that 
the  leaders  of  the  national  society  were  averse  from  giving 
to  Mr.  Garrison  the  prominence  he  sought  while  they 
recognized  him  as  a  factor  in  the  local  movements  in 
Massachusetts.  They  were  unwilling  to  be  responsible 
for  his  words  or  acts.  As  a  boy  writer  he  had  taken  Ju- 
nius  for  his  exemplar  and  libeled  like  his  English  proto 
type.  His  earliest  ambition  was  to  be  the  American  Ju- 
nius  without  being  anonymous.  His  vanity  displayed  his 
name  at  its  full  length  on  all  occasions.  The  same  senti 
ment  caused  him  to  multiply  drawings,  paintings,  photo 
graphs,  sketches,  and  busts  of  himself.  While  he  was  a 
printer's  apprentice  he  spent  part  of  his  earnings  in  having 
his  portrait  painted,  representing  him  in  fashionable  garb 
and  ruffled  shirt.  During  his  flight  and  concealment  in 
1833  from  the  imaginary  abductors  and  assassins  hired  by 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME   WING."  321 

the  Colonizationists,  he  sat  twice  for  his  portrait,  once  in 
Philadelphia  and  once  in  New  Haven.  He  was  .then 
twenty-seven  years  of  age.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
he  was  a  subject  for  English  artists.  He  had  his  portrait 
engraved  and  put  on  the  market.  Copies  were  placed  in 
every  anti-slavery  book-store  for  sale  on  commission.  He 
practiced  all  the  arts  of  personal  notoriety.  To  be  talked 
of,  no  matter  how,  seemed  to  be  his  aim  in  life.  A 
dramatic  situation  was  his  delight ;  he  posed  at  the  grave 
of  Calhoun  and  in  the  gallery  of  the  World's  Convention. 
At  twenty-one  he  had  published  in  a  Boston  paper,  "  If  my 
life  be  spared  my  name  shall  be  known  to  the  world,"  and 
a  year  later  he  had  repeated  this  gasconade.  It  seemed  to 
matter  little  to  him  whether  his  professions  and  practice 
were  in  accord.  In  early  manhood  he  quoted  Scripture 
and  talked  religion  like  a  clergyman,  but  he  was  not  then 
and  never  became  a  communicant  in  any  church.  (GL  i, 
56.)  He  advocated  immersion,  but  was  never  immersed. 
Claiming  to  be  a  Christian,  he  denied  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible  and  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and  said  at  the  second 
decade  anti-slavery  meeting  in  1853  :  "  We  are  infidels, 
are  we  ?  Well,  who  would  be  recognized  otherwise  in  a 
land  like  this  ?  Who  that  is  honest,  manly,  humane,  who 
that  loves  God  and  loves  his  race,  would  desire  for  one 
moment  to  pass  current  in  this  blood-stained  nation  as  a 
religious  man  ?  He  who  is  willing  to  be  popularly  recog 
nized  as  such  ought  to  hang  his  head  for  shame  and  hide 
himself  until  he  is  willing  to  come  out  and  be  branded  as 
an  '  infidel.'  "  ("  Proceedings,"  page  90.) 

His  professions  at  one  time  were  in  conflict  with  those 
at  another.  He  called  the  Sabbath  "  our  moral  sun,"  and 
apostrophized  it  as  follows  :  "  If  thou  wert  blotted  out  .  .  . 
earth  would  resemble  hell."  Afterward  he  did  his  best  to 
blot  it  out,  denouncing  it  as  fervently  as  he  had  praised  it. 

In  a  printed  address  in  1831  (page  15)  he  bursts  into 


322  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

ejaculations  of  enthusiasm  for  the  Federal  Constitution : 
"  Thanks  be  to  God  that  we  have  such  a  Constitution ! " 
He  called  it  a  "  high  refuge  from  oppression."  In  1832 
he  called  it  "  the  most  bloody  and  heaven-daring  arrange 
ment  ever  made  by  man  "  (G.  i,  308) ;  and  later  in  his 
career  he  flaunted  at  the  head  of  his  newspaper  the  gibe 
that  it  was  a  "  covenant  with  death  and  agreement  with 
hell."  His  inconsistencies  in  action  and  frequent  changes 
of  doctrine  gave  an  air  of  unreality  and  insincerity  to  his 
professions  as  a  reformer.  This  was  added  to  by  his  num 
berless  whims  and  the  facility  of  his  adoption  of  novelties 
in  belief. 

His  sons  speak  of  the  "  faith  in  advertised  remedies 
which  was  ever  characteristic  of  him  "  (G.  i,  37).  Many 
amusing  stories  were  told  of  his  use  of  quack  medicines. 
He  was  an  easy  convert  to  all  the  crotchets  of  his  day, 
among  which  were  Grahamism  and  Spiritualism.  It  is 
said,  he  was  a  firm  believer  in  photo-spiritism  and  the  ma 
terialization  of  spirits,  following  in  this  the  example  of  H. 
C.  Wright.  We  learn  from  Oliver  Johnson's  biography  of 
him  that  he  was  "  thoroughly  satisfied  that  he  had  re 
ceived  many  communications  from  friends  in  the  spirit 
world  "  (page  376). 

Von  Hoist,  in  his  "  Constitutional  History "  (vol.  i, 
page  225),  gives  a  carefully  studied  appreciation  of  Mr. 
Garrison : 

With  a  mind  capable  of  logical  thinking  neither  by  natural 
endowment  nor  from  education,  his  judgment,  in  the  hand  of 
his  unbridled  feeling,  was  lost  in  a  labyrinth  of  senseless  abstrac 
tions.  .  .  .  Clambering  upon  the  ladder  of  his  wonderful  logic 
toward  pure  principles,  without  looking  to  the  right  or  the  left, 
he  soon  completely  lost  the  ground  of  the  real  world  under 
his  feet. 

After  the  separation  of  the  Garrisonians  from  the  main 
body  of  the  abolition  army,  the  tendency  of  their  doctrines 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME   WING."  323 

became  more  marked.  Senseless  abstractions  led  to  ex 
travagances  in  language  and  conduct.  The  fine-spun 
casuistries  of  "  no-human  government  "  unsettled  some  of 
the  finest  intellects  in  New  England.  N.  P.  Kogers,  the 
poet-editor  of  New  Hampshire,  and  who  for  years  had 
been  an  efficient  worker  in  the  anti-slavery  cause,  fell  a 
victim  to  the  cloudy  metaphysics  of  religious  nihilism. 
He  would  have  no  president,  no  secretary,  no  business 
committee,  no  resolutions,  at  his  meetings ;  each  man  was 
to  act  as  he  might  think  best,  without  being  influenced  by 
others.  Among  the  converts  to  the  same  doctrine  was 
the  logical  Palmer,  who  refused  to  touch  coin  or  note  or 
bond,  or  to  pay  taxes  or  recognize  human  government  in 
any  manner.  Trade  was  to  be  conducted  by  barter. 
There  were  enough  like  him  to  start  a  small  paper  as 
their  organ,  but  its  existence  was  brief,  there  being  trouble 
in  paying  and  collecting  subscriptions.  Some,  of  whom 
Abby  Folsom  was  the  type,  became  crazed  on  free  speech. 
A  meeting  for  humanity  was  everybody's  meeting  and,  of 
course,  everybody  had  a  right  to  speak.  As  Abby  wanted 
to  speak  all  the  time  and  others  wanted  a  part  of  the 
time,  there  was  conflict.  Meetings  were  broken  up.  This 
becoming  unbearable,  the  principle  was  suspended,  and 
Abby  was  lifted  up  gently  and  carried  out  of  doors.  On 
one  occasion,  when  she  was  being  carried  out  by  Oliver 
Johnson,  W.  A.  White,  and  Wendell  Phillips,  she  cried 
out :  "  I  am  more  blessed  than  my  lord ;  he  had  but  one 
ass  to  carry  him  and  I  have  three." 

A  favorite  speaker  of  the  sect  was  flattered  into  a  con 
ceit  that  his  profile  resembled  Christ's.  He  parted  his 
hair  in  the  middle,  let  it  grow  until  it  covered  his  shoul 
ders,  cultivated  a  rather  scanty  beard,  and  with  liberal  use 
of  crimping-irons,  curling-tongs,  and  "  thy  incomparable 
oil,  Macassar!"  effected  a  transformation  of  himself  which 
would  hnve  been  creditable  to  a  theatrical  costumer.  His 


324  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

audiences  had  the  pleasure  of  frequent  profile  views  of  the 
orator.  At  a  later  period,  a  blonde  rival,  equal  to  him  in 
every  point  except  the  curled  and  tufted  beard,  divided 
with  him  the  admiration  of  aesthetic  souls. 

"  Father  Lamson,"  who,  in  his  better  days,  was  noticed 
by  Theodore  Parker  as  a  "  beautiful  soul,"  went  clean  daft 
under  the  pressure  of  the  new  ideas.  He  had  long  white 
locks  which  he  wore  uncovered,  and  being  deeply  im 
pressed  with  the  necessity  of  mowing  down  this  wicked 
world  and  its  ways,  procured  a  large  scythe  with  a  long 
handle  to  perfect  his  resemblance  to  Time.  He  was  a  fre 
quent  attendant  at  the  Garrisonian  meetings,  where,  if 
permitted,  he  stood  upon  the  platform,  leaning  on  his 
weapon  and  looking  sadly  at  the  audience. 

If  it  had  not  been  a  principle  of  this  sect  of  professional 
reformers  to  say  and  do  shocking  things  for  the  purpose 
of  attracting  attention,  the  sanity  of  several  of  their  leaders 
might  well  be  doubted.  The  language  of  H.  C.  Wright 
increased  in  violence  as  he  grew  older.  In  the  "  Libera 
tor  "  for  October  and  November,  1849,  were  published 
letters  from  him  which  savor  of  a  disordered  intellect. 
Of  the  Christian's  God,  he  says  :  "  Such  a  being  is  to  me 
a  devil,"  etc.  .  .  .  What  they  call '  God  '  is  but  an  almighty 
convenience  to  slave-holders  and  warriors  and  their  allies." 
There  is  other  language  too  indecently  blasphemous  for 
reproduction  here.  At  what  was  called  a  "  Peace  Meet 
ing,"  he  offered  the  following :  "  Resolved  that  fidelity  .  .  . 
demands  that  we  should  deny  the  existence  and  scorn  the 
worship  of  any  being  as  God,  who  ever  did,  or  ever  can, 
sanction  war  or  authorize  the  destruction  of  human  life  at 
the  hand  of  man  for  any  cause." 

That  was  the  kind  of  resolution  passed  by  non-resis 
tants  at  their  meetings,  in  order,  as  they  said,  to  create 
"  moral  power  "  in  behalf  of  their  cause  !  It  was,  how 
ever,  the  expression  of  a  sympathetic  nervous  excitement 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME  WING."  325 

caused  by  an  intense  and  narrow  fanaticism  of  the  same 
generic  class  as  the  "  jerks  "  prevalent  in  Kentucky,  in  a 
single  sect,  in  the  early  part  of  the  century.  Parker  Pills- 
bury  was  worse,  if  possible,  than  Wright ;  he  compared 
churches  to  gambling  houses  and  brothels  ("Liberator," 
November  2,  1848).  Pillsbury's  book,  "Acts  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Apostles"  (1884,  503  pages),  gives  a  very  frank 
and  interesting,  though  confused,  account  of  the  doings  of 
himself  and  five  or  six  other  Garrisonian  lecturers  in  New 
England,  beginning  about  1839.  They  hit  upon  a  new 
plan  of  "creating  moral  power";  it  was  to  go  into 
churches  at  the  time  of  regular  services  and  lecture  the 
congregations  without  leave  and  until  put  out  by  force ! 
On  this  plan,  they  acted  systematically,  regardless  of  the 
indignation  excited  among  the  persons  whose  rights  they 
so  recklessly  invaded.  Indeed,  they  do  not  appear  to  have 
imagined  that  other  persons  had  any  rights  to  be  respected. 
They  were  ejected,  of  course;  sometimes  gently,  some 
times  roughly.  Fines  were  inflicted  upon  them  by  magis 
trates,  and  imprisonment  on  non-payment.  This  they 
called  persecution  for  righteousness'  sake.  These  cranks 
must  have  been  intolerable  nuisances  to  the  people ;  and 
it  is  wonderful  that  they  escaped  with  little  bodily  injury. 
One  of  these  very  aggressive  non-resistants  was  S.  S.  Fos 
ter,  the  author  of  a  vigorous  assault  011  the  Church  and 
clergy  entitled  "The  Brotherhood  of  Thieves."  If 
there  had  not  been  a  strong  anti-slavery  sentiment  among 
the  people,  and  a  certain  tenderness  toward  the  trespassers 
as  persons  supposed  to  be  crazed  by  the  abolition  agitation, 
Messrs.  Pillsbury,  Foster,  and  their  colleagues  would  have 
fared  badly. 

Before  the  end  of  1843,  the  Garrisonians  found  they 
were  flailing  thrice-thrashed  straw.  Perfectionism,  non- 
resistance,  and  no-human  government  theories  had  been 
condemned  by  the  common  sense  of  the  public.  Ameri- 


326  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

cans  rejected  doctrines  that  left  wives  and  daughters 
without  protection  from  ruffians  and  prevented  the  weak 
from  associating  themselves  to  restrain  the  strong.  That 
shallow  fallacy,  "  the  world  is  my  country  "  the  motto  of 
the  "  Liberator,"  did  not  rouse  the  heart  like  the  lines : 

Breathes  there  a  man  with  soul  so  dead 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said 
This  is  my  own,  my  native  land  ! 

"  In  1841  or  1842  it  was  alleged  that  there  were  not, 
probably,  more  than  one  or  two  hundred  non-resistants  in 
all  New  England.*'  (Goodell's  "  History,"  page  462.) 

The  distinctive  doctrines  of  the  Garrisonian  faction 
would  have  caused  its  early  extinction.  It  was  kept  in 
existence  by  its  continued  professions  of  desire  to  abolish 
slavery.  As,  however,  every  convert  refused  to  vote,  it 
was  plain  that  if  two  thirds  of  the  people  of  Massachu 
setts  became  Garrisonians  the  political  power  of  the  State 
would  be  wielded  by  the  pro-slavery  minority  and  the 
Legislature  and  members  of  Congress  would  be  chosen 
from  among  the  most  pliant  tools  of  the  slave  power. 
Discussion  had  laid  bare  the  absurdity  of  denouncing  the 
national  evil  and  refusing  to  take  the  only  practical  action 
to  get  rid  of  it,  and  in  1843  it  had  become  evident  that  a 
change  of  programme  was  indispensable  to  the  further  vi 
tality  of  the  faction.  Internal  divisions  also  threatened 
disaster.  Wendell  Phillips  and  his  friends,  possessing  the 
best  ability  and  constituting  the  large  majority  of  the 
faction,  had  never  accepted  Mr.  Garrison's  peculiar  notions 
about  government,  and  they  reprobated  the  disorderly  as 
saults  of  Pillsbury,  Foster,  and  others  upon  the  churches. 
A  compromise  between  these  conflicting  elements  was 
effected.  Secessionism  was  adopted  as  the  future  platform. 
This  lay  half-way  between  the  contracting  parties.  Phil 
lips,  it  is  evident  from  the  result,  waived  his  liberty  of  re- 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME  WING."  327 

sorting  to  constitutional  methods  to  gain  abolition,  and 
Garrison  waived  his  no-government  and  non-voting  theo 
ries  and  consented  to  advocate  a  political  movement  that 
involved  State  action  and  much  voting.  This  compromise 
was  a  last  and  desperate  struggle  of  a  moribund  faction 
for  life.  Oliver  Johnson,  in  "  Garrison  and  his  Times  " 
(page  337),  describes  what  Garrison  did  in  this  matter  : 

He  began  with  the  Massachusetts  society  in  January,  1844, 
but  even  that  society  was  not  then  quite  ready  to  follow  his  lead. 
He  brought  the  subject  before  the  American  Society  in  May,  and, 
after  a  long  and  very  exciting  discussion,  that  society,  by  a  vote 
of  59  to  21.*  put  itself  squarely  on  the  ground  of  disunion.  The 
New  England  Convention  followed  two  weeks  later,  voting  the 
same  way,  250  to  24.  Then  the  whole  Garrisonian  phalanx 
swung  solidly  round  to  the  same  position,  and  the  movement 
thenceforth  carried  aloft  the  banner  No  Union  with  Slave-holders. 

This  was  in  May,  1844,  and  the  campaign  for  the  presi 
dency  was  in  progress.  The  Whig  newspapers,  from  one 
end  of  the  North  to  the  other,  immediately  charged  seces- 
sionism  and  disunionism  upon  the  Liberty  party  as  its 
logical  result  if  not  its  avowed  doctrine,  and  the  charge 
was  reiterated  by  the  numerous  speakers  of  that  party. 
The  members  of  the  Liberty  party  defended  by  denial 
and  by  the  countercharge  that  the  passage  of  the  secession 
resolution  in  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society  was  an 
electioneering  trick  concocted  between  Garrison,  a  former 
Whig  and  ardent  friend  of  Henry  Clay,  and  Horace 
Greeley,  the  Whig  manager,  to  whom  had  been  assigned 
the  task  of  defeating  the  Liberty  party  and  winning  the 
an ti- slavery  vote  for  Clay.  They  pointed  also  to  the  fact 
that  David  Lee  Child,  an  intimate  friend  of  Garrison  and 
editor  of  his  anti-slavery  organ  at  New  York,  had  aban- 

*  This  falling  off  in  the  numbers  reveals  the  decadence  of  the  Ameri 
can  Anti-Slavery  Society  under  Garrison's  rule.  It  had  lost  its  hold  on 
the  country  at  large. 


328  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

doned  his  post  in  order  to  devote  his  whole  time  to  pro 
mote  the  success  of  Henry  Clay  and  to  the  further  fact 
that  the  negroes  of  Boston  and  the  non-resistants  generally 
were  ranging  themselves  in  the  Whig  phalanx.  In  after 
years  they  regarded  Mr.  Greeley's  frequent  praise  of  Gar 
rison  and  the  appointments  on  the  "  Tribune "  staff  of 
several  sub-editors  of  the  "  Liberator  "  as  so  many  recog 
nitions  by  Mr.  Greeley  of  his  secret  political  obligations 
to  Mr.  Garrison.  Yon  Hoist  intimates  obscurely  his  be 
lief  in  such  a  bargain  when  he  says  of  Mr.  Garrison's 
heresies :  "  These  differences  and  heresies  were,  so  to 
speak,  traded  in  open  market  from  the  very  beginning  " 
(page  225). 

If  traded  at  any  time  it  was  in  1844.  The  result  of 
the  move,  however,  was  that  the  Liberty  party  was  gen 
erally  held  responsible  for  the  treasonable  declarations  of 
its  bitterest  enemy  and  was  greatly  damaged  in  public  es 
timation. 

From  this  time  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion 
the  true  leader  of  the  Boston  secessionists  was  Wendell 
Phillips.  The  humble  role  of  his  companion  on  lecturing 
tours  was  filled  by  Garrison. 

Nature  had  endowed  him  with  wonderful  gifts  as  an 
orator,  and  his  youthful  aspiration  was  to  excel  Edward 
Everett  and  win  the  fame  of  being  the  most  eloquent 
American.  He  found  the  needed  theme  in  slavery  and 
identified  himself  with  abolitionists  before  their  separa 
tion.  Hereditary  wealth  gave  him  leisure,  which  he  used 
in  the  preparation  of  his  speeches.  He  sharpened  and 
polished  his  phrases  until  they  were  keen  as  razors  and 
bright  as  diamonds.  He  would  not  speak  before  he  was 
quite  ready,  and  his  speech  was  an  event.  Though  lack 
ing  the  pathetic  element  he  attracted  as  large  crowds  as 
Ingersoll.  He  spoke  seldom  and  generally  in  the  large 
cities.  He  had  no  talent  or  taste  for  organization.  He 


"THE  SMALL   EXTREME  WING."  329 

was  vox  et  prefer ea  nihil.  There  was  no  disunionist  party 
at  the  North  except,  perhaps,  Vallandigham  and  the 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  and  Wendell  Phillips  ad 
vocated  secession  from  a  standpoint  which  was  not  theirs. 
He  was  the  only  prominent  advocate  of  a  withdrawal  of 
the  Northern  States  from  the  Union,  Garrison  in  this 
matter  being  merely  a  foil  to  his  brilliant  companion.  To 
the  people  generally  the  proposition  appeared  unpatriotic 
and  treasonable,  and  the  moral  power  of  the  North  was 
arrayed  against  the  phrase-maker  whose  sole  object  in  life 
seemed  to  be  to  burn  down  the  temple  of  liberty  by  shoot 
ing  blazing  arrows  upon  its  roof.  "When  the  agitations  of 
the  incipient  rebellion  began  to  shake  the  country,  the 
Northern  people  ceased  to  tolerate  Phillips's  set  speeches 
as  innocuous  oratorical  displays.  For  the  first  time  in 
Boston  he  was  in  danger  of  mob  violence.  When  he  an 
nounced  his  great  disunion  speech  for  Sunday,  January 
20, 1861,  in  the  Boston  Music  Hall,  a  popular  outbreak  be 
came  imminent.  The  authorities  took  every  precaution  to 
maintain  the  public  peace  and  order.  Police  officers  were 
scattered  through  the  crowded  hall,  and  a  large  reserve 
force  was  secretly  held  ready  a  few  rods  distant.  The 
Governor,  the  adjutant-general,  the  county  sheriff,  and 
the  mayor  of  the  city,  were  stationed  close  by.  Mr.  Phil 
lips  was  well  protected  from  the  fury  of  the  populace. 
He  advocated  letting  "  the  erring  sisters  go  in  peace."  He 
exclaimed : 

Sacrifice  anything  to  keep  the  slave-holding  States  in  the 
Union  !  God  forbid  !  We  will  rather  build  a  bridge  of  gold 
and  pay  their  toll  over  it,  accompany  them  out  with  glad  noise 
of  trumpets  and  "speed  the  parting  guests."  Let  them  not  stand 
on  the  order  of  their  going,  but  go  at  once  !  Take  the  forts, 
empty  our  arsenals  and  sub-treasuries,  and  we  will  lend  them  be 
sides  jewels  of  gold  and  jewels  of  silver,  and  Egypt  be  glad  when 
they  are  departed. 


330  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

The  Union  was  termed  a  "monstrous  nightmare." 
For  the  first  three  years  of  the  war  Wendell  Phillips 
and  his  corporal's  squad  of  secessionists  gave  "aid  and 
comfort "  to  the  rebels  by  persistent  efforts  to  undermine 
the  influence  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Their  choicest  sneers 
and  epithets  *  of  -ridicule  were  reserved  for  him.  At  the 
last  hour,  when  the  doom  of  slavery  had  been  sealed  and 
the  triumph  of  the  Government  assured,  they  somer 
saulted  awkwardly  into  the  Union  camp,  joined  in  the 
national  huzzas  for  Lincoln,  stripped  themselves  of  their 
tattered  non-resistant  and  secession  garments,  donned 
hastily  the  Union  uniform,  and  have  ever  since  boldly 
claimed  that  all  their  professions  of  disunion  sentiments 
for  twenty  years  before  the  war  were  false,  and  they  were 
at  heart  loyal  citizens,  and  ready  to  take  arms  for  their 
country ! 

Not  a  single  distinctive  doctrine  of  the  Garrisonian 
"  extreme  wing  "  was  ever  accepted  by  the  American  people 
or  Government.  It  was  the  most  utter  abortion  known  in 
the  history  of  this  country.  It  advocated  the  abolition  of 
the  clergy,  the  overthrow  of  the  Church,  of  the  Union,  of  the 
Government ;  but  the  clergy  are  still  numerous,  the  Church 
stands  firm,  the  Union  is  preserved,  and  the  pillars  of  the 
Government  are  as  solid  as  those  of  the  earth.  It  besought 
men  not  to  take  up  arms,  but  to  abjure  their  manhood  and 
yield  their  rights  to  the  violent.  Free  Americans  responded 
by  defending  with  Sharp's  rifles  the  free  soil  of  Kansas  and 
stretching  their  line  of  battle  against  rebellion  from  ocean 
to  ocean.  It  opposed  slavery  as  it  opposed  imprisonment 
for  crime  or  parental  coercion  of  children  because  it  was 
one  form  of  force  which  they  held  to  be  sinful  per  se. 
The  Government  abolished  it  because  it  was  a  political 
monster  dangerous  to  the  safety  of  the  republic.  The 

*  One  of  these  was  "  bloodhound  of  slavery." 


"THE  SMALL  EXTREME  WING."  331 

only  use  Garrison  found  for  the  national  Constitution  was 
to  burn  it  at  Framingham  on  a  Fourth  of  July ;  but  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  found  in  it  the  war  powers  under  which  he 
put  an  end  to  slavery  by  military  order.  Garrison  spent 
the  best  years  of  his  life  in  trying  to  transform  American 
citizens  into  political  eunuchs,  urging  them  not  to  vote  or 
organize  a  political  party  against  slavery.  The  people 
have  answered  by  building  up  a  political  party  based  upon 
the  Constitution  he  burned. 

Historians  will  follow  the  lead  of  Von  Hoist  in  his  es 
timate  of  "the  small  extreme  wing."  They  will  assign  to 
it  the  same  relation  to  the  anti-slavery  movement  which 
is  borne  by  the  dynamite  faction  of  0 'Donovan  Rossa  to 
the  legitimate  movement  for  Irish  home  rule.  They  will 
declare  it  to  have  been  from  its  inception,  about  1836,  to 
its  final  recantation  and  disappearance  in  the  civil  war 
an  unmitigated  curse  to  the  abolition  cause,  acting  in  its 
name,  but  discrediting  it  by  noisy  crotchets  and  blatant 
treason.  They  will  adopt  as  true  the  saying  of  Charles 
Sumner:  "An  omnibus  load  of  Boston  abolitionists  has 
done  more  harm  to  the  anti-slavery  cause  than  all  its  ene 
mies." 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 
THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

A  PERMAXE^T  national  party  in  a  republic  governed 
by  suffrage  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  genius  of  the 
institutions  and  laws  of  the  country.  In  this  essential 
element  the  slave  power  was  wanting.  Unceasing  struggle 
was  the  condition  of  its  existence,  and  from  its  birth,  in 
1820,  it  was  doomed  to  perish  soon  or  late — peaceably  or 
in  the  struggles  of  civil  war. 

That  its  antagonist,  the  Constitutional  Anti-Slavery 
party,  embodied  all  the  elements  of  final  success,  is  evi 
dent  from  its  record.  It  was  a  powerful  national  senti 
ment  which  in  the  winter  of  1835-'3j3_fprced  a  reluctant 
Congress  to  defeat  the  attempt  of  President  Jackson  and 
Senators  Calhoun  and  Preston  on  the  freedom  of  the 
mails,  and  to  enact  a  law  punishing  with  fine  and  impris 
onment  any  postmaster  guilty  of  tampering  with  them ; 
which  brought  an  average  of  sixty-six  representatives  to 
vote  against  each  of  the  four  "  gag  "  rules  passed  by  the 
House  in  1836,  1837,  and  1838  ;  which  brought  Vermont 
and  Massachusetts  boldly  to  the  front  in  1830  and  1837, 
as  favoring  abolition  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  the  vote 
in  the  Legislative  Assembly  of  the  latter  standing  378  to 
1G.  Beginning  in  1836  with  efforts  in  some  localities  to 
affect  the  choice  of  members  of  State  Legislatures  and  to 
punish  pro-slavery  candidates  for  re-election  to  Congress, 
it  grew  stronger  from  year  to  year,  acting  first  as  a  "  bal- 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  333 

a^nee-of-power "  party,  and  voting  for  the  best  Whig  or 
Democratic  candidate  until  the  sycophancy  of  the  two 
great  parties  to  the  slave  power  compelled  it  to  place  its 
own  candidates  in  the  field.  From,  that  time  it  gained 
steadily  in  influence,  compelling  the  passage  of  personal- 
liberty  laws  in  all  the  Northern  States,  electing  Governors, 
United  States  Senators  and  Representatives,  and  casting 
an  increasing  vote  for  its  candidate  at  each  presidential 
election,  until  its  success  in  1860. 

In  round  numbers,  its  presidential  vote  was  as  follows, 
subject  to  allowance  for  votes  not  counted  in  the  first  four 
elections : 

1840   Birney 7,100 

1844  ....  Birney 62,300 

Van  Buren      ) 


1848  ....  \   '       ~  „   ~      [      300,000 

I  Gerrit  Smith  \ 

1852   ....   John  P.  Hale 155,900 

1856   Fremont 1,341,000 

1860   Lincoln 1,900,000 

A  party  of  such  steady  growth  had  its  roots  deep  down 
in  national  soil ;  and  it  rapidly  grew  strong  under  the 
fierce  heat  of  Southern  aggression.  James  G.  Birney  did 
not  plant  it.  Nor  was  he  the  first  who  unfurled  the  ban 
ner  of  "political  action."  Rufus  King,  Talmadge,  and 
others,  had  unfurled  it  in  18.20  ;  Governor  Coles,  in  Illi 
nois,  in  1824 ;  Lundy  and  Raymond,  in  Maryland,  in  1826, 
1827,  1828,  and  1229 ;  and  William  Jay,  Joshua  Leavitt, 
and  their  coadjutors,  in  the  constitution  of  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  in  1833.  But  when  historians  shall 
have  cleared  away  the  rubbish  heaped  by  vanity,  ignorance, 
and  family  pride  upon  the  facts  of  the  early  opposition  to 
the  slave  power,  they  will  award  this  honor  to  James  G. 
Birney  ;  that  he  saw  more  clearly  than  any  other  one  man 
of  his  times  the  true  path,  followed  it  more  closely,  kept 
the  end  more  steadily  in  view,  and  by  common  recognition 


334:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

of  friends  and  enemies,  became,  and  remained  until  the 
sudden  close  of  his  public  career,  the  trusted  and  honored 
leader  of  the  party  of  constitutional  resistance. 

Some  marked  changes  in  the  practical  operations  of 
the  national  executive  committee  followed  immediately 
upon  the  removal  of  Mr.  Birney  to  New  York,  in  Septem 
ber,  1837.  The  organization  of  auxiliary  local  societies 
by  means  of  agents  was  discontinued,  the  cause  being 
sufficiently  advanced  to  leave  this  to  the  spontaneous 
action  of  the  people.  The  result  was  the  voluntary  for 
mation  of  644  auxiliaries  in  less  than  two  years,  in  ad 
dition  to  the  1,006  already  existing,  and  of  many  other 
societies,  not  auxiliary.  All  of  these,  without  distinction, 
were  encouraged  to  be  active  in  independent  propa- 
gandism,  by  means  of  the  circulation  of  documents,  plac 
ing  the  best  anti-slavery  books  in  town  and  school  libraries, 
and  causing  their  best  talkers  to  take  part  in  debates  and 
public  discussions  on  topics  relating  to  slavery.  As  a 
part  of  the  same  policy,  the  committee  resorted  to  the  em 
ployment  of  a  large  number  of  local  agents  (Annual  Re 
port,  1838,  page  47).  These  were  most  of  them  profes 
sional  men  who  lectured  in  their  respective  neighborhoods. 
Encouragement  was  given  in  the  summer  of  1837  and  the 
ensuing  winter  to  .petitioning  Congress,  with  a  result  of 
414,571  signatures  to  petitions  presented  in  the  House  in 
the  six  months  following  the  1st  of  December.  After 
that  session,  it  was  regarded  as  safe  to  leave  this  means 
also  of  influencing  public  opinion  to  the  spontaneous  action 
of  the  people. 

Increased  care  was  given  to  the  character  of  the  publi 
cations  of  the  society.  The  year  1838  was  remarkable 
for  the  value  and  timeliness  of  the  anti-slavery  books. 
Among  them  were  the  admirable  argument  of  T.  D.  Weld, 
on  the  power  of  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia,  and  his  famous  book  "  Slavery  as  it  is," 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REBUBLICAN  PARTY.  335 

a  collection  of  facts  from  Southern  newspapers ;  Thome 
and  Kimball's  report  of  the  results  of  emancipation  in  the 
West  Indies ;  and  Judge  Jay's  view  of  the  "  Action  of  the 
Federal  Government  in  behalf  of  Slavery."  Each  of 
these  ran  through  several  editions.  The  number  of  issues 
in  the  twelve  months  ending  with  April,  1838,  was  646,- 
502;  and  in  the  following  year,  724,862.  By  unceasing 
effort,  these  were  distributed,  through  agents,  friends, 
and  societies,  into  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  Northern 
States. 

One  of  the  greatest  dangers  to  the  anti-slavery  cause 
was  warded  oif  by  Mr.  Birney  at  the  May  anniversary  of 
the  national  society,  in  1838.  Alvan  Stewart,  Esq.,  of 
T^tica,  IS".  Y.,  a  devoted  abolitionist  and  eloquent  speaker, 
had  written  him  that  he  would  offer  a  resolution  to  amend 
the  society  constitution,  by  striking  out  the  cause  assert 
ing  that,  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  each 
slave  State  had  the  exclusive  right  to  legislate  in  regard 
to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  its  own  limits.  lie.  asserted 
the  right  of  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  South.  Mr. 
Birney,  on  the  other  hand,  believed,  with  the  consensus  of 
nearly  all  jurists,  that  Congress  had  no  such  power  in 
time  of  peace.  For  four  years  he  had  maintained,  in 
speech  and  in  the  press,  that  the  Constitution  had  been 
formed  by  States  independent  of  one  another,  no  one  of 
them  having  any  right  to  legislate  on  slavery  in  any  other, 
and  that  such  a  right  could  be  acquired  only  by  express 
grant;  that  while  by  the  Constitution  freedom  was 
stamped  as  law  upon  all  territory  under  national  jurisdic 
tion,  the  States,  all  *  of  them  being  slave-holding  in  prac 
tice,  had  entered  in  that  instrument  into  no  compact,  in 

*  This  has  been  denied  in  regard  to  Massachusetts ;  but  see  "  Xotes 
on  the  History  of  Slavery  in  Massachusetts,"  by  George  H.  Moore,  pub 
lished  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co. ;  also  authorities  cited  by  Mr.  Moore  in  an 
article  in  the  "  Historical  Magazine,"  December,  1866. 


336  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

regard  to  slavery  in  the  States,  except  to  grant  the  power 
to  Congress  to  prohibit  the  importation  of  slaves  and  sus 
pend  its  exercise  until  1808  ;  and  that  though  what  may 
be  done  by  a  nation  for  self-preservation  is  practically  un 
limited,  war  powers  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  ordinary 
constitutional  ones.  He  thought  it  revolutionary  to  hold 
that  Congress  could  establish  or  abolish  slavery  in  a  State, 
and  that  the  passage  of  Mr.  Stewart's  resolution  would  be 
such  a  radical  change  in  the  anti-slavery  constitution  as 
to  amount  to  a  breach  of  faith  with  members  and  would 
greatly  damage  the  cause  ;  and  entreated  him  not  to  pre 
sent  it.  Mr.  Stewart  persisted.  An  arrangement  was 
made  by  Mr.  Birney  with  Judge  Jay,  under  which  both 
of  them  made  careful  preparation  to  meet  Mr.  Stewart's 
arguments.  The  question  was  debated  for  two  days  and 
was  finally  decided  affirmatively.*  The  vote  stood  46 
yeas  to  38  nays.  It  fell  short  of  the  two- thirds  vote 
required  by  the  constitution.  This  unexpected  defeat 
greatly  shook  the  confidence  of  Mr.  Birney  in  the  good 
judgment  of  many  of  the  men  who  habitually  attended 
the  annual  meetings,  not  as  delegates  selected  for  their 
sound  sense,  but  as  volunteers  abounding  in  zeal.  From 
that  date  he  redoubled  his  exertions  to  popularize  the 
movement  and  make  it  independent  of  the  influences  of  a 
central  society  whose  membership  and  policy  were  alike 
unstable. 

The  famous  "  Elmore  Letter,"  though  written  by  Mr. 
Birney  in  March,  1838,  was  not  published  until  nearly  the 
last  of  the  following  May.  The  correspondence  is  of  his 
torical  value.  Mr.  Elmore  was  a  member  of  the  House 
from  South  Carolina,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  John  C. 
Calhoun.  In  January  Mr.  Birney  had  sent  an  anti-slavery 

*  The  writer  had  the  good  fortune  to  hear  all  this  debate.  It  was 
extremely  able  on  both  sides.  Mr.  Garrison  was  present  but  said 
nothing. 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  337 

publication  to  Mr.  Calhoun  with  a  note,  stating  that  it 
was  sent  because  Mr.  Calhoun  had  appeared  more  solicit 
ous  than  most  other  Southern  politicians  to  get  accurate 
information  about  anti-slavery  movements,  and  adding : 
"  We  have  nothing  to  conceal,  and  should  you  desire  any 
information  as  to  our  procedure,  it  will  be  cheerfully  com 
municated  on  my  being  apprised  of  your  wishes." 

This  note  was  handed  to  Mr.  Elmore.  Thereupon  the 
slave-power  Representatives  in  Congress,  after  conferring 
together,  appointed  a  committee  to  obtain  authentic  infor 
mation  touching  anti-slavery  associations,  and  Mr.  Elmore 
was  selected  as  the  South  Carolina  member  of  the  com 
mittee.  February  16th  Mr.  Elmore  addressed  Mr.  Birney 
a  courteous  letter,  quoting  from  his  note  to  Mr.  Calhoun 
and  asking  full  information  "  as  to  the  nature  of  yours 
and  similar  associations."  May  oth,  in  a  letter  closing  the 
correspondence,  Mr.  Elmore  refers  as  follows  to  his  reasons 
for  soliciting  the  correspondence  : 

I  heard  of  you  as  a  man  of  intelligence,  sincerity,  and  truth — 
who,  although  laboring  in  a  bad  cause,  did  it  with  ability  and 
from  a  mistaken  conviction  of  its  justice.  ...  I  was  induced  to 
enter  into  a  correspondence  with  you,  who,  by  your  official  station 
and  intelligence,  were  known  to  be  well  informed  on  these  points, 
and  from  your  well-established  character  for  candor  and  fairness 
would  make  no  statements  of  facts  which  were  not  known  or  be 
lieved  by  you  to  be  true. 

This  tribute  of  respect  paid  by  a  South  Carolina  Con 
gressman  to  the  leading  abolitionist  of  the  country,  tends 
to  exonerate  the  public  men  of  the  South  from  the 
common  imputation  of  underestimating  their  opponents. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Elmore  expressed  the  senti 
ment  of  Mr.  Calhoun  and  the  other  slave-holding  repre 
sentatives. 

In  his  first  letter  Mr.  Elmore  propounded  fourteen 
questions,  searching  and  exhaustive  in  regard  to  the 
16 


338  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

nature,  object,  numbers,  methods  of  propagandism,  print 
ing-presses,  funds,  and  hopes  of  the  anti-slavery  associa 
tions.  They  were  answered  fully  and  in  their  order  by 
Mr.  Birney.  The  lucid  statements  made  by  him  have 
passed  into  every  history  of  the  times  ;  they  need  not  be 
repeated  here.  We  make  an  exception,  however,  of  one  or 
two  expressions  in  regard  to  the  national  Constitution  : 

The  abolitionists  regard  the  Constitution  with  unabated  affec 
tion.  They  hold  in  no  common  veneration  the  memory  of  those 
who  made  it.  They  would  be  the  last  to  brand  Franklin  *  and 
King  and  Morris  and  Wilson  and  Sherman  and  Hamilton  with 
the  ineffaceable  infamy  of  intending  to  ingraft  upon  the  Consti 
tution,  and  therefore  to  perpetuate,  a  system  of  oppression  in 
absolute  antagonism  to  its  high  and  professed  objects  (p.  28). 
...  In  the  political  aspect  of  the  question  they  [the  abolition 
ists]  have  nothing  to  ask  except  what  the  Constitution  authorizes 
— no  change  to  desire  but  that  the  Constitution  may  be  restored 
to  its  pristine  republican  purity. 

The  distance  between  these  sentiments  and  the  motto 
of  the  "  Liberator,"  "  The  Federal  Constitution — a  covenant 
with  Death  and  agreement  with  Hell,"  is  the  measure  of 
the  chasm  that  already  separated  the  abolitionists  of  the 
country  from  the  Garrisonian  clique. 

The  number  of  members  of  anti-slavery  societies  was 
estimated  at  one  hundred  and  twelve  thousand  four  hun 
dred  and  eighty ;  but  it  was  added,  that  noiv  societies  are 
"not  deemed  so  necessary  for  the  advancement  of  our 
cause  "  (page  7).  ...  "  Within  the  last  ten  months  I  have 
traveled  extensively  in  both  these  geographical  divisions 

*  In  a  letter  to  a  bosom  friend  Franklin  apologized  for  consenting  to 
a  Constitution  which  left  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  control  of  the 
States.  He  said  :  "  It  is  a  little  sop  to  Cerberus,  the  best  thing  that  can 
be  done  at  present.  It  (slavery)  can  not  last  long,  there  is  too  much 
virtue  in  the  country.  As  fast  as  men  become  honest  they  will  drop 
slavery."  He  was  president  of  the  Pennsylvania  Abolition  Society. 


THE  LIBERTY-FREE  SOIL-REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  339 

(the  Northern  and  Middle  free  States).  I  have  had  what 
ever  advantage  this,  assisted  by  a  strong  interest  in  the 
general  cause  and  abundant  conversations  with  the  best 
informed  abolitionists,  could  give  for  making  a  fair  esti 
mate  of  their  numbers.  In  the  Northern  States,  I  should 
say,  they  are  one  in  ten  ;  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and 
Pennsylvania,  one  in  twenty,  of  the  whole  adult  popu 
lation." 

The  Elm  ore  correspondence  was  published  in  a  neat 
pamphlet  of  sixty-eight  pages,  in  a  very  large  edition,  and 
a  copy  of  it  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  every  public  man, 
especially  of  every  Southern  member  of  Congress. 

AJarge  share  of  Mr.  Birney's  attention  was  devoted  to 
legislative  bodies.  In  the  winter  of  1S37-'3S  he  visited 
e_very  State  capital,  from  Maine  to  Ohio  and  Michigan,  in 
which  the  legislative  body  was  in  session,  and  he  obtained 
a  hearing  everywhere.  The  results  of  his  labors  and  of 
more  general  causes  contributing  to  the  rapid  extension 
among  politicians  of  sound  opinions  on  slavery  and  corre 
lated  political  questions  may  be  summed  up  as  follows : 
A>  jury  trial  was  secured  in  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut 
to  every  person  claimed  as  a  slave  ;  Connecticut  repealed 
her  black  act ;  and  the  Legislatures  of  Maine,  Vermont, 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  New  York,  Ohio,  and  Michi 
gan  passed  vigorous  resolutions  in  favor  of  the  right  of 
petition  and  against  the  admission  of  Texas,  every  Demo 
cratic  member  except  one  of  the  Lower  House  in  Ohio, 
voting  with  the  majority.  Mr.  Birney  was  encouraged  by 
these  signs  of  the  times.  In  the  "  Annual  Report "  made 
in  May,  1838,  he  said  :  "  We  have  never  for  a  moment  de 
spaired  of  republicanism  or  of  our  country"  (page  97). 

With  characteristic  energy  and  tact  he  applied  himself 
to  political  action  to  affect  the  result  of  the  fall  elections 
in  1838.  Agents  lectured  in  Rhode  Island  creating  a 
popular  sentiment  that  resulted  in  the  election  as  Governor 


340  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  William  Sprague,  the  only  candidate  who  had  placed 
himself  squarely  on  the  anti-slavery  platform.  The  earnest 
support  given  to  Luther  Bradish,  the  Whig  anti-slavery 
candidate  in  Xew  York  for  Lieutenant-Governor,  hardly 
sufficed  to  compensate  for  the  loss  of  the  votes  of  the  pro- 
slavery  men  of  his  party.  A  decided  and  successful  effort 
was  made  to  defeat  the  re-election  of  Governor  Vance,  of 
Ohio,  who  had  hastily  surrendered  John  B.  Mahan  to  the 
Governor  of  Kentucky,  to  be  tried  for  abducting  slaves. 
It  was  considered  very  important  to  keep  in  the  United 
States  Senate  that  noble  abolition  Democrat  Thomas 
Morris,  of  Ohio  ;  but  this  was  not  found  feasible.  The 
election  of  Benjamin  Tappan,  brother  of  Arthur  and 
Lewis  Tappan,  as  Morris's  successor,  was,  however,  a  com 
promise  by  the  Democratic  party  with  anti-slavery  senti 
ment. 

TJie.  main_effqrt  of  the  campaign  was  to  accomplish  the 
return  to  the  House  of  Representatives  of  several  anti- 
slavery  members.  Mr.  Birney  was  wont  to  say  : 

One  good  Congressman  can  do  more  for  our  cause  than  a  hun 
dred  lecturers.  He  has  almost  daily  occasions  for  agitation,  and 
he  speaks  to  the  whole  people.  We  can  reach  the  South  through 
no  other  means.  The  slave-holders  gain  their  advantages  in  na 
tional  politics  and  legislation,  and  should  be  met  in  every  move 
they  make. 

With  these  viewsvhe  used  freely  the  agencies  under  his 
control  to  influence  public  opinion  in  the  Congressional  dis 
tricts  represented  by  John  Quincy  Adams  and  by  William 
Slade,  of  Vermont.  The  election  of  both  these  wras  re 
garded  as  certain.  It  was  desirable,  however,  to  give  them 
able  coadjutors.  The  nomination  by  Massachusetts  W^higs 
of  James  C.  Alvord,  who  was  distinguished  as  an  anti- 
slavery  writer  and  orator,  was  arranged,  and  he  was  elected 
by  a  large  majority.  Mr.  Alvord  died  before  taking  his 
seat.  In  the  Genesee  district  (New  York)  the  anti-slavery 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  341 

voters  holding  the  "balance  of  power,"  compelled  the 
nomination  of  Seth  M.  Gates,  and  carried  his  election  tri 
umphantly.  Mr.  Gates  was  re-elected  in  1840.  During 
the  four  years  of  his  service  in  Congress  he  was  a  tower  of 
strength  to  the  abolition  cause.  In  the  Western  Reserve 
District,  Ohio,  settled  chiefly  by  men  from  Connecticut 
and  other  New  England  States,  the  people  were  opposed 
to  slavery  by  tradition  and  education.  Abolition  lecturers 
from  Lane  Seminary  had  visited  them  in  1834  and  1835 
and  enlightened  them  on  the  religious  aspects  of  the  sub 
ject.  In  1836  and  1837  Mr.  .Jiirney,  under  his^makired 
policy  of  gaining  representatives  in  legislative  bodies  by 
gaining  districts,  had  sent  into  the  Western  .Reserve  the 
best  political  lecturers  in  the  employ  of  the  Ohio  Anti- 
Slavery  Society.  He  had  himself  lectured  in  the  principal 
towns.  The  eloquent  T.  D.  Weld  had  traversed  every  part 
of  the  district.  When  Elisha  Whittlesey  resigned  his  seat 
in  Congress,  in  1838,  it  needed  but  a  few  letters  to  leading 
abolitionists  in  the  district  to  show  them  their  opportu 
nity.  The  Whig  managers  felt  the  political  necessity  of 
nominating  a  candidate  who  would  receive  the  anti-slavery 
vote.  Their  convention  nominated  and  the  people  elected 
Joshua  R.  (Jidding-s,  one  of  Mr.  \Yeld's  converts.  From 
the  time  Mr.  Giddings  took  his  seat  in  Congress  he  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  William  Slade,  and  both  of 
them  were  in  advance  of  John  Quincy  Adams.  In  De 
cember,  1839,  the  accession  of  Seth  M.  Gates  completed 
the  "  Big  Four "  of  the  early  anti-slavery  agitation  in 
Congress.  While  these  successes  were  won  by  the  anti- 
slavery  party  by  the  judicious  use  of  the  "  balance  of 
power,"  defeats  and  disappointments  were  the  general 
rule.  The  plan  of  questioning  the  candidates  nominated 
by  Whigs  and  Democrats  was  proved  by  the  experience  of 
three  years  to  be  a  mistake.  If  both  the  opposing  can 
didates  answered  fairly,  abolitionists  voted  each  for  his 


312  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

old  party  ticket ;  if  they  answered  defiantly,  abolitionists 
stayed  at  home  on  election  day.  In  either  case  no  special 
anti-slavery  influence  was  exerted  in  politics.  In  nearly 
every  instance  of  the  election  of  a  State  Legislator  or  a 
Congressman  by  an  anti-slavery  "  balance-of-power  "  vote, 
the  office-holder  regarded  his  obligations  to  his  party  as 
paramount.  And  as  the  fixed  policy  of  the  Whig  and 
Democratic  parties  was  to  conciliate  the  favor  of  the  slave 
power  and  secure  the  vote  of  the  South,  members  of  those 
parties  could  not  redeem  pledges  made  by  them  to  abo 
litionists.  Beginning  with  1836,  the  anti-slavery  voters 
were  known  as  a  party  in  politics.  For  the  first  three 
years  it  worked  on  the  radically  vicious  plan  of  having  no 
candidates  of  its  own,  and  voting  for  the  least  hostile  can 
didates  nominated  by  its  enemies ;  and  in  that  time  it  had 
luadi-  liltic  pi-ogives  in  gaining  representatives  in  Congress 
and  the  State  Legislatures.  The  necessity  of  abandoning 
that  plan  and  adopting  the  more  effective  one  of  nomi 
nating  from  its  own  body,  was  apparent  to  those  leaders 
who  were  in  earnest  to  accomplish  the  proposed  end. 
Such  a  change,  it  was  evident,  would  cause  the  falling 
away  of  talkers  who  would  not  vote,  and  of  that  large 
class  of  men  who  were  manoeuvring  for  position  between 
the  anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery  parties ;  but  a  Gideon's 
band  was  likely  to  accomplish  more  than  a  discordant 
crowd. 

The  occasion  and  one  of  the  causes  of  Mr.  Birney's 
adoption  of  the  plan  of  independent  nominations  was 
the  announcement,  January  21st,  in  the  House  by  John 
Quincy  Adams,  that  he  was  not  prepared  to  favor  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  !  He  regarded 
this  as  unfaithfulness.  Mr.  Adams's  usefulness  to  the  anti- 
slavery  cause  he  regarded  as  ended  forever.  This  opinion 
was  justified  by  the  subsequent  course  of  that  leading 
Whig  in  regard  to  slavery.  This  was  reviewed  in  1843 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  343 

by  Mr.  Birney  over  his  own  signature,  with  his  accus 
tomed  candor,  courage,  and  power ;  and  as  Mr.  Adams 
will  not  reappear  in  these  pages,  we  copy  from  the  article 
the  following  extracts : 

His  course,  in  my  judgment,  has  been  eccentric,  whimsical, 
inconsistent  ;  defended  in  part  by  weak  and  inconclusive,  not  to 
say  frivolous,  arguments  ;  and  taken  as  a  whole  thus  far,  is  un 
worthy  of  a  statesman  of  large  views  and  a  right  temper  in  a 
great  national  conjuncture. 

He  cites  facts  to  prove  that,  while  Mr.  Adams  had  pro 
fessed  sympathy  with  the  abolitionists,  he  had  opposed 
each  of  their  special  measures,  and  that  they,  in  violation 
oFEKeir  rule,  had  put  confidence  in  his  words,  though  flatly 
contradicted  by  his  deeds. 

This  departure  in  Mr.  Adams's  case  from  the  rule  has  been 
followed  by  the  consequences  that  usually  attend  .  .  .  depart 
ures  from  rules  which  have  been  deliberately  adjusted  for  the 
management  of  large  affairs.  The  abolitionists  in  electing  Mr. 
Adams  made  him  their  own  witness,  hoping,  like  an  eager  but 
an  inexperienced  litigant,  that  his  testimony  would  be  favorable 
to  them,  because  he  was  heard  to  speak  freely  of  the  bad  charac 
ter  of  their  adversary.  But  the  upshot  of  the  matter  is  that 
everything  substantial  in  his  testimony  is  favorable  to  their  ad 
versary.  To  them  he  gives  words — words — words. 

Do  the  abolitionists  assault  slavery  in  Florida — in  the  District 
of  Columbia  ?  There  is  Mr.  Adams,  the  main  reliance  of  their 
adversary,  placed  in  his  position  of  power  by  abolitionists,  play 
ing  "fast  and  loose  "  at  pleasure  between  the  contending  parties 
— amusing  the  one  with  speeches  and  letters  against  slavery,  all 
very  interesting  and  eloquent  to  be  sure,  but  serving  the  other 
day  and  night  defending  the  citadel  of  their  abominations. 

Do  the  abolitionists  labor  so  to  correct  public  sentiment  that 
Congress,  possessing  unlimited  discretionary  power  in  the  prem 
ises,  shall  be  persuaded  to  refuse  Florida  admission  into  the 
Union  as  a  slave  State  ?  Mr.  Adams  is  unceasingly  impressing 
on  the  public  mind  that  this  would  be  a  breach  of  the  national 
faith. 


34:4:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

Do  they  toil  to  produce  the  general  conviction  that  slavery 
can  not  long  withstand  the  influence  of  a  fast  rising  public  senti 
ment  against  it  ?  Mr.  Adams,  in  his  cold  response  to  the  warm 
greetings  of  the  colored  population  of  Cincinnati,  assures  us  that 
* '  as  long  as  Africa  encourages  slavery  it  is  impossible  to  put  an 
end  to  it  in  America.  .  .  .  The  abolitionists  insist  on  immediate 
emancipation  as  the  most  practicable  and  safest  mode  for  all  par 
ties."  Mr.  Adams  dispatches  it  as  a  "moral  and  physical  impos 
sibility."  .  .  . 

For  the  logic  by  which  Mr.  Adams,  after  asseverating  in  almost 
every  variety  of  form  our  language  can  supply  that  no  law  can 
confer  or  sanction  property  in  human  beings,  has  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  this  barbarian,  brutal  usurpation  ought  to  be 
endured  at  the  heart  of  the  Government  until  the  wrong-doers 
voluntarily  relinquish  their  hold  on  their  victims  ;  that  Florida 
ought  to  be  admitted  into  the  iTnion  with  a  slave-holding  Consti 
tution  ;  .  .  .  that  immediate  emancipation  is  a  moral  and  physi 
cal  impossibility  ;  that  slavery  must  first  be  abolished  among  the 
Mohammedan  and  pagan  chiefs  of  Africa  before  it  can  be  possible 
to  put  an  end  to  it  in  Christian  America  ;  for  such  logic,  I  say,  I 
can  entertain  but  little  respect.  .  .  .  Mr.  Adams  owes  much  of 
his  present  popularity  — may  I  not  say  nearly  all — to  his  connec 
tion  with  the  anti-slavery  agitation.  Abolitionists  have  contrib 
uted  more  than  any  other  class  of  persons  to  swell  the  tide  of  his 
influence.  That  influence  is  now  active  in  fortifying  against 
t  hem  every  practicable  point  at  which  they  have  attacked  slavery 
in  this  country,  and  his  quasi-sjmpaihy  with  them  gives  it  an 
independent  and  unusual  force.  There  is  no  one  who  is  doing 
so  much — I  assume  not  to  say  it  is  so  intended — to  deaden  the 
awakening  sensibilities  of  our  countrymen  against  the  private 
iniquity  and  public  disgrace  of  slavery,  as  Mr.  Adams. 

This  arraignment  of  Mr.  Adams  was  made  by  a  man 
who  had  supported  him  earnestly  up  to  his  sudden  change 
of  front  on  the  21st  of  January,  1839.  The  surprising 
declaration  of  Mr.  Adams  shook  the  confidence  of  many 
thoughtful  abolitionists  in  the  wisdom  of  voting  for  can 
didates  nominated  by  the  other  political  parties.  He  had 
been  regarded  as  the  "  faithful  among  the  faithless."  The 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REBUBLICAN  PARTY.  345 

idea  of  independent  nominations  received  another  strong 
impulse  from  Mr.  Clay's  speech  on  the  ensuing  7th  of 
February.  He  said  : 

It  is  because  these  ultra-abolitionists  have  ceased  to  employ 
the  instruments  of  reason  and  persuasion,  have  made  their  cause 
political,  and  have  appealed  to  the  ballot-box,  that  I  am  induced 
upon  this  occasion  to  address  you.  .  .  .  That  is  property  which 
the  law  declares  to  be  property.  Two  hundred  years  of  legisla 
tion  have  sanctioned  and  sanctified  negro  slaves  as  property. 

He  was  answered  by  that  stout  old  abolition  Democrat, 
Thomas  Morris,  United  States  Senator  from  Ohio : 

I  have  noticed  for  some  time  past  that  many  of  the  public 
prints  in  this  city,  as  well  as  elsewhere,  have  been  filled  with  es 
says  against  abolitionists  for  exercising  the  right  of  freemen. 

Both  political  parties,  however,  have  courted  them  in  private 
and  denounced  them  in  public,  and  both  have  equally  deceived 
them.  And  who  shall  dare  say  that  an  abolitionist  has  no  right 
to  carry  his  principles  to  the  ballot-box  ?  .  .  .  Let  me  then  pro 
claim  here  from  this  high  arena  to  the  citizens  not  only  of  my 
own  State,  but  to  the  country,  to  all  sects  and  parties  who  are 
entitled  to  the  right  of  suffrage  :  To  the  ballot-box  /  .  .  .  Fear 
not  the  frowns  of  power.  It  trembles  while  it  denounces  you. 

Mr.  Clay's  strong  pro-slavery  speech  shocked  the  anti- 
slavery  AVhigs  and  was  the  chief  cause  of  his  losing  the 
party  nomination  in  the  folloAving  December.  Senator 
Morris's  "  trumpet  call "  found  the  abolition  leaders  ready 
to  buckle  on  their  armor  for  the  battle.  The  system  of 
independent  party  nominations  had  already  been  discussed 
in... New  York.  James  G.  Birney,  Joshua  Leavitt,  Elizur 
Wright,  H.  B.  Stanton,  and  others,  had  declared  in  its 
favor,  and  an  active  private  correspondence  to  promote  it 
had  already  been  entered  upon  with  prominent  anti-slavery 
men  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  In  February  Alvan 
Stewart  urged  it  upon  the  executive  committee  of  the  Xew 
York  Anti-Slavery  Society.  About  the  same  time,  in  a 


346  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AXD  HIS  TIMES. 

private  letter   to   a  prominent   abolitionist,   Mr.   Birney 
wrote : 

Our  political  movement  heretofore  may  be  compared  to  the 
wake  of  a  vessel  at  sea,  never  increasing  in  length  no  matter  how 
many  thousands  of  miles  she  may  sail.  But  the  present  move 
ment  shows  that  we  have  discovered  our  mistake  ;  that  there  is 
enough  life  and  spirit  among  us  to  attempt  its  correction  ;  that 
we  are  willing  to  act  as  well  as  to  talk,  to  overshadow  with  this 
great  question  minor  ones  that  have  for  a  long  time  distracted 
portions  of  our  friends  and  alienated  them  from  each  other  ;  and 
that,  instead  of  resting  satisfied  with  still  longer  committing  our 
sacred  cause  to  the  hands  of  its  enemies  or  of  mere  partisans  who 
almost  uniformly  thus  far  have  either  baffled,  befooled,  or  be 
trayed  us,  we  have  confidence  enough  in  it  and  in  ourselves  to 
take  the  political  as  well  as  the  other  parts  of  it  into  our  own 
keeping  and  under  our  own  management.  I  look  on  the  inde 
pendent  party  movement  as  proof  not  only  of  the  greater  force 
and  energy  of  the  anti-slavery  cause,  but  of  its  greater  expansion, 
and  I  am  not  more  surprised  at  it  than  I  would  be  at  seeing  the 
young  of  a  noble  bird,  grown  too  large  for  the  nest  and  feeling 
its  strength  and  courage  equal  to  the  attempt,  committing  itself 
to  the  bosom  of  the  air  and  training  its  powers  in  the  region  of 
thunders  and  lightnings  and  storms. 

In  this  letter  Mr.  Birney  expressed  the  conviction 
which  was  felt  by  that  small  number  of  men  who,  regard 
ing  resistance  to  the  slave  power  as  the  paramount  politi 
cal  duty  of  the  time,  had  been  as  individuals  casting  their 
votes  as  the  "  balance-of-power  "  party.  Having  no  sepa 
rate  organization  they  could  not  act  in  concert,  and  in 
general  anti-slavery  meetings  they  were  greatly  outnum 
bered  by  men  who  still  adhered  to  the  old  political  parties 
or  who  for  different  reasons  would  not  go  to  the  polls.  In 
every  political  campaign  the  rumor  was  industriously  cir 
culated  that  the  anti-slavery  men  would  vote  every  man 
for  the  candidates  of  his  old  party.  The  mutual  distrust 
excited  by  this  prevented  the  increase  of  the  abolition 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  34.7 

vote.  Its  gains  since  1836  were  scarcely  perceptible.  The 
necessity  began  to  be  felt  strongly  of  cutting  loose  from 
non-voting  abolitionists  and  from  those  who  voted  with 
their  former  parties.  The  policy  of  independent  anti- 
slavery  nominations  for  State  officers  and  congressmen 
was  readily  and  generally  concurred  in  by  voting  aboli 
tionists  before  the  month  of  July,  1839,  the  responses  to  a 
lithographed  circular  sent  out  from  Xew  York  and  urging 
it  having  been  for  the  most  part  favorable. 

To  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
the  expenses  incident  to  a  national  political  campaign  and 
a  thorough  organization  presented  difficulties  apparently 
insurmountable.  It  was  therefore  not  contemplated  by 
any  respectable  number  of  persons  until  after  Mr.  Clay's 
pro-slavery  speech  in  February  and  the  resulting  aliena 
tion  from  him  of  anti-slavery  Whigs.  This  apparent  de 
fection  looked  like  a  permanent  one,  and  occasioned  one 
of  equal  or  larger  proportions  from  the  ranks  of  the 
Democrats.  The  propriety  of  national  nominations  began 
to  be  talked  of.  With  discussion  the  sectional  policy  of 
the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties,  their  unlimited  servility 
to  the  slave  power,  endangering  the  republic  by  the  ad 
mission  of  new  slave  States  and  the  erection  of  slavery 
into  the  law  of  the  nation,  were  impressed  more  deeply 
upon  the  minds  of  leading  abolitionists  as  making  impera 
tive  the  organization  of  a  separate  and  permanent  na 
tional  party  upon  the  principle,  "  freedom  national,  slav 
ery  local." 

This  tendency  of  opinion  was  shown  in  the  resolutions 
passed  at  a  national  anti-slavery  convention  of  some  five 
hundred  delegates  held  at  Albany,  N.  Y.,  July,  31,  1839, 
to  vote  for  no  man  who  would  not  avow  his  immedia- 
tism,  entreating  all  abolitionists  to  vote  and  to  adopt  such 
a  course  in  respect  to  presidential  nominations  as  seemed 
best  for  the  cause  in  each  section.  In  the  last  proceed- 


348  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS.  TIMES. 

ings  of  the  convention  a  resolution  was  passed  looking  to 
independent  nominations  for  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent.  On  the  28th  of  September  following  the  Monroe 
County  (N".  Y.)  convention  adopted  a  series  of  resolutions 
and  an  address  in  favor  of  nominating  a  national  ticket 
for  abolition  suffrages.  These  were  prepared  by  Myron 
Holley,  who  since  the  1st  of  January  of  that  year  had 
taken  an  active  interest  in  the  anti-slavery  movement. 
He  was  a  public  man  who  had  earned  the  gratitude  of  the 
people  of  his  State  by  his  devotion  to  its  greatest  internal 
improvement,  the  Erie  Canal.  His  public  spirit,  ardent 
temperament,  and  moving  eloquence  designated  him  as  a 
proper  person  to  advocate  a  movement  which  had  already 
been  decided  upon  by  Alvan  Stewart,  Gerrit  Smith,  Will 
iam  Goodell,  Joshua  Leavitt,  Elizur  Wright,  and  other 
leading  men. 

October  23d,  at  a  national  anti-slavery  convention  of 
four  hundred  delegates  held  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  the  sub 
ject  was  discussed  on  a  resolution  offered  by  Myron  Holley 
proposing  a  nominating  committee;  but,  as  it  had  not 
been  mentioned  in  the  call  and  nearly  all  the  delegates 
were  from  Ohio,  the  convention  being  for  special  objects, 
it  was  laid  on  the  table,  the  friends  of  independent  nomi 
nations  voting  for  this  disposition  of  it.  November  13th, 
a  State  convention  of  about  five  hundred  delegates  met  at 
Warsaw,  N.  Y.,  and  unanimously  nominated  James  G. 
Birney  for  President. 

This  action  indicated  the  strength  of  the  new  move 
ment,  but  it  was  not  that  of  a  national  convention.  On 
that  ground  Mr.  Birney  declined  the  nomination.  There 
were  two  other  grounds  not  mentioned — the  inexpediency 
of  nominating  before  the  Whig  party  had  done  so  and  his 
desire  that  Judge  William  Jay  should  be  the  anti-slavery 
standard  bearer  if  it  should  be  necessary  to  choose  one. 
In  the  event  of  the  nomination  of  Henry  Clay  or  any 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

other  slave-holder  by  the  Whigs,  he  thought  the  Whig 
abolitionists  might  be  relied  on ;  but  that  if  the  Whig 
party  should  nominate  General  Scott,  who  was  known  to 
be  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  and  admission  of 
Texas  as  a'slave  State,  and  to  be  willing  to  approve  a  bill 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
the  Whig  abolitionists  would  support  the  W^hig  candidate. 
This  would  cause  a  stampede  of  Democratic  abolitionists 
to  their  old  party,  and  the  independent  ticket  would  fall 
to  the  ground. 

In  view  of  this  state  of  things,  he  would  not  have  re 
garded  it  as  expedient  to  nominate  an  independent  ticket 
if  General  Scott  had  been  the  Whig  candidate. 

Matters  remained  therefore  at  a  standstill  until  after 
the  Whig  convention  of  December  4th  at  Harrisburg  had 
nominated  General  William  Henry  Harrison.  It  is  con 
ceded  by  Henry  Clay's  friends  that  he  was  dropped  be 
cause  of  his  unpopularity  at  the  North,  caused  by  his  pro- 
slavery  speech  in  February  and  his  identification  with  the 
cause  of  the  United  States  Bank.  There  was  in  the  free 
States  a  strong  repugnance  among  intelligent  men  to  an 
alliance  through  Clay  between  the  great  moneyed  power  of 
the  country  and  the  slave  power  of  the  South.  Abolition 
ists  especially  feared  Clay  because  he  was  plausible  and 
adroit  and  would  be  able  not  only  to  procure  the  admission 
of  Texas  to  the  Union,  but  the  division  of  the  territory 
into  several  slave  States.  General  William  H.  Harrison 
was  nominated  without  a  platform  ;  but  he  was  a  Virgin 
ian  by  birth,  had  antecedents  as  favoring  the  re-establish 
ment  of  slavery  in  the  Indiana  Territory  while  he  was 
Governor  there,  and  had  declared  the  discussion  of  slavery 
unconstitutional  and  that  "  the  schemes  of  the  abolition 
ists  were  fraught  with  horrors  upon  which  an  incarnate 
devil  only  could  look  with  approbation." 

Nothing  could   be  hoped   for   the  anti-slavery  cause 


350  JAMES  G.  BTRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

from  either  Harrison  or  Van  Buren,  and  there  was  immi 
nent  danger  that  if  an  independent  nomination  were  not 
made  the  anti-slavery  voters  would  disappear  altogether. 
The  campaign  promised  to  be  one  of  extraordinary  viru 
lence  and  vigor  on  both  sides.  The  Democrats  were 
struggling  to  retain  power,  but  were  weakened  by  the 
numerous  defalcations  of  office-holders  and  the  "hard 
times  "  caused  by  the  bad  condition  of  the  banking  system. 
The  Whigs  wrere  emboldened  by  the  distress  of  their 
adversaries,  and  were  already  preparing  to  win  by  a  cam 
paign  not  of  political  principles,  but  of  secret  anti-slavery 
promises  made  to  be  broken  and  of  clamor,  log-cabins, 
hard  cider,  and  coon-skins.  To  the  abolitionists  it  had 
become  a  vital  necessity  to  keep  together.  If  they  were 
swallowed  up  in  the  pro-slavery  parties  their  cause  was 
lost.  Independent  nominations  were  the  only  means  to 
maintain  the  identity  and  perpetuation  of  the  anti-slavery 
party  in  politics.  January  28,  1840,  a  State  convention, 
held  at  Arcade,  N.  Y.,  issued  a  call  for  a  national  conven 
tion  to  be  held  April  1st  at  Albany,  N.  Y.?  for  the  purpose 
of  deciding  whether  nominations  should  be  made  for 
President  and  Vice-President.  In  spite  of  a  very  inclem 
ent  season  delegates  from  six  States  were  present.  After 
a  full  discussion  the  convention  decided  to  make  the 
nominations.  In  the  selection  of  candidates  no  one  was 
mentioned  for  the  presidency  except  James  G.  Birney. 
He  was  unanimously  nominated.  Thomas  Earle,  of  Phil 
adelphia,  was  put  on  the  ticket  as  nominee  for  the  vice- 
presidency.  Xo  name  was  given  to  the  new  party.  For 
several  years  it  was  known  by  sundry  names,  and  in  1844 
it  was  christened  "  Liberty,"  which  was  dropped  in  1848 
for  "Free  Soil."  Its  organization  cleared  the  abolition 
cause  of  do  nothings,  trading  politicians,  and  false  friends, 
brought  about  concert  of  action,  gave  to  every  man  some 
thing  practical  to  do,  swelled  local  contributions,  deepened 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  351 

interest,  put  a  stop  to  Northern  mobs,  and  increased  dis 
cussion  a  hundred  fold.  Mere  talkers  gave  way  to  work 
ers.  Under  the  new  impulse  the  old  anti-slavery  societies 
fell  into  decay  and  active  local  clubs  sprang  up  over  the 
country.  As  an  independent  party  opening  a  convenient 
refuge  for  the  dissatisfied  it  exerted  a  largely  increased 
influence  over  the  nominations  by  the  Whigs  and  Demo 
crats.  The  appearance  in  politics  of  such  men  as  Charles 
Sumner,  Henry  Wilson,  David  Wilmot,  and  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  was  due  to  it.  At  one  time  the  New  York  Barn 
burners,  at  another  the  Wilmot  Proviso  men  came  to  it, 
and  at  last,  when  all  reasons  for  the  further  existence  of 
the  Whig  party  had  ceased,  that  party  dissolved.  Its  pro- 
slavery  members  found  a  congenial  home  in  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  and  its  freedom-loving  members  went  natu 
rally  into  the  party  formed  in  1840  to  repel  the  aggressions 
of  the  slave  power.  For  many  years  the  bad  effects  of  the 
"  balance-of -power  "  policy  in  its  embryonic  days  weakened 
the  general  confidence  in  the  stability  of  the  new  party, 
and  many  looked  to  see  it  absorbed  into  one  or  the  other 
of  the  old  organizations.  New  converts  were  not  stead 
fast  ;  but  as  time  wore  on  it  became  clearer  that  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  new  party  were  the  only  broadly  national 
ones,  the  only  ones  strong  enough  to  curb  the  slave  power 
and  prevent  the  enslavement  of  the  laboring  classes  and 
the  overthrow  of  the  wages  system  and  of  the  republic. 
When  the  slave  power  attempted  to  seize  upon  Kansas, 
the  sentiment  created  by  the  Free-Soil  party  was  strong 
enough  to  resist  and  conquer  it.  This  conflict  caused  the 
reformation  of  political  parties  and  the  absorption  of  the 
Whig  into  the  two  others.  The  election  of  Lincoln,  prov 
ing  to  the  slave  power  that  it  could  no  longer  dictate  the 
national  policy,  led  to  secession.  The  Government  took 
up  arms  to  preserve  the  Union,  and,  as  one  of  the  means 
to  that  end,  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  States  was  ef- 


352  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

fected  chiefly  by  military  power.  Though  slavery  was  the 
cause  of  the  war,  the  United  States  did  not  take  up  arms 
for  the  purpose  of  abolishing  it.  If  the  controlling  power 
in  the  slave  States  had  been  willing  in  1860  to  accept  re 
striction  of  slavery  to  its  existing  limits,  freedom  in  the 
Territories,  in  all  new  States,  and  in  the  District  of  Colum 
bia,  it  is  probable  that  slavery  would  still  exist  in  the 
Southern  States.  The  final  abolition  of  it  was  a  political 
not  a  moral  measure,  adopted  for  national  unity  and 
peace,  not  as  benevolence  to  the  negroes ;  but  it  became 
necessary,  because  the  slave  power  would  not  submit  to 
the  reasonable  and  constitutional  policy  declared  in  the 
constitution  of  the  American  Anti  -  Slavery  Society  in 
1833,  by  the  Anti-Slavery  party  in  1840,  the  Liberty  party 
in  1844,  the  Free-Soil  party  in  1848  and  1852,  and  the 
Eepublican  party  in  1856  and  18GO. 

Many  volumes  have  been  written  on  the  history  of  the 
anti-slavery  political  movement  between  1840  and  1862. 
The  plan  of  this  sketch  does  not  embrace  that  period. 

A  brief  notice  of  the  campaign  of  1844  will  close  the 
political  portion  of  our  task. 

The  three  candidates  for  the  presidency  were  James 
K.  Polk,  Henry  Clay,  and  for  the  abolitionists,  James  G. 
Birney,  who  had  again  been  unanimously  nominated  by  a 
national  convention.  Mr.  Polk  carried  seven  free,  and 
eight  slave  States  and  a  popular  majority  of  about  39,000 ; 
Mr.  Clay  carried  Jive  free,  and  six  slave  States;  and  62,300 
votes  were  returned  *  for  Mr.  Birney.  After  the  election 
the  claim  was  made  by  Horace  Greeley  that  the  abolition 
ists  ought  all  to  have  voted  for  Mr.  Clay,  and  if  they  had 

*  A  few  thousand  votes  more  were  certainly  given ;  but  the  election 
laws  were  weak,  party  spirit  high,  and  the  judges  were  all  Whigs  or 
Democrats.  From  many  precincts  where  abolitionists  had  voted  no 
votes  were  returned  ;  from  Rhode  Island,  where  many  abolition  votes 
bad  been  cast,  only  five  were  returned. 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  353 

doiie  so  Mr.  Clay  would  have  been  elected.  Mr.  Greeley 
had  the  manliness  to  retract  this  afterward  and  to  attribute 
Mr.  Clay's  defeat  to  the  right  cause* — his  pro-slavery 
record  and  his  several  disingenuous  letters  on  the  Texas 
question ;  but  the  claim  is  still  made  by  some  superficial 
politicians.  It  might  be  answered  in  the  same  spirit  by 
saying  that  if  all  who  voted  for  Clay  had  voted  for  Birney 
the  latter  would  have  been  elected ;  and  that  if  the  874,534 
Whigs  who  voted  for  Fillmore  in  1856  had  voted  for 
Fremont  the  latter  would  have  been  elected.  Such  hy 
potheses  are  puerile.  A  better  answer  is  that  if  the  abo 
litionists  had  all  voted  for  Clay  the  strong  probability  is 
that,  with  his  tact  and  personal  and  official  influence,  he 
would  have  probably  secured  the  admission  of  Texas  as 
five  or  more  slave  States,  and  thus  given  the  political  pre- 
ponderancy  to  the  slave  States.  This  would  have  been 
the  logical  extension  of  his  record  in  gaining  the  admission 
of  Missouri  as  a  slave  State  and  the  congressional  recogni 
tion  of  slavery  in  Arkansas.  The  true  and  sufficient 
answer  is  that  the  abolitionists  were  engaged  in  laying 
the  foundations  of  a  permanent  national  party  and  ought 
not  to  have  abandoned  that  work  for  any  transient  reason 
whatever.  Their  action  has  been  fully  justified  by  the 
subsequent  triumph  of  the  Republican  party. 

The  contest  of  1844  was  one  of  the  most  closely  con 
tested  in  the  history  of  presidential  elections.  As  the 
campaign  waxed  hot  and  chances  were  seen  to  be  about 

*  In  I860  Mr.  Greeley  in  a  letter  to  Hiram  Ketchum,  published  in  the 
"Tribune,"  referred  to  the  Whig  defeat  of  1844  thus:  "  Unfortunate  as 
you  and  I  thought  because  Mr.  Clay  interposed  to  derange  our  order  of 
battle  and  prevent  our  fighting  it  on  the  anti-slavery  ground  we  had 
chosen."  In  the  "  Tribune"  of  January  7,  1864,  Mr.  Greeley  wrote:  "It 
has  long  been  my  decided  conviction  that  but  for  Mr.  Clay's  own  unfor 
tunate  and  sadly  perverted  letters  to  Alabama,  with  regard  to  the  annexa 
tion  of  Texas,  his  election  could  not  have  been  prevented." 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

equal,  Democrats  and  Whigs  alike  appealed  to  the  anti- 
slavery  men  for  votes.  As  the  election  drew  near  and  Clay's 
chances  were  seen  to  be  growing  less,  the  appeals  of  the 
Whigs  became  almost  frantic.  Horace  Greeley,  then  a 
violent  Whig  partisan,  but  who  had  for  years,  in  the  New 
York  "  Tribune,"  adopted  a  friendly  tone  toward  the  abo 
litionists,  and  who  had  thought  himself  able  to  deliver 
their  votes  to  his  chief,  Mr.  Clay,  redoubled  his  entreaties, 
arguments,  and  appeals.  David  Lee  Child,  editor  of  the 
"  Anti-Slavery  Standard,"  the  Garrisonian  organ  at  New 
York,  threw  his  influence  publicly  for  Clay.  The  Whig 
papers  abounded  in  false  statements.  Mr.  Birney  was 
abused  and  cajoled  by  turns.  The  last  resort  of  the 
Whigs  was  the  "  Garland  forgery,"  concocted  by  the  Whig 
Central  Committee  of  Michigan.  It  purported  to  be  a 
letter  from  James  G.  Birney  to  one  Garland,  a  resident  of 
his  legislative  district  in  Michigan,  soliciting  the  Demo 
cratic  nomination  for  the  Legislature,  and  declaring  his 
democracy  and  his  intention  to  defeat  Henry  Clay.  It 
purported  to  be  duly  sworn  to  and  to  be  printed  on  an 
extra  of  the  "  Oakland  Gazette."  This  infamous  docu 
ment  was  printed  at  New  York  by  the  Whigs  in  immense 
quantities,  and  sent  in  packages  to  active  Whigs  in  every 
county  in  the  Northern  States,  with  instructions  not  to 
circulate  it  until  after  the  1st  of  November.  In  western 
New  York  it  was  withheld  until  the  3d,  on  which  day  it 
was  known  that  Mr.  Birney,  who  had  been  in  the  State 
for  about  a  month,  expected  to  leave  Buffalo  in  a  steam 
boat  for  Detroit.  Owing  to  the  accidental  detention  of 
the  boat,  he  did  not  leave  on  that  day,  and  a  copy  of  the 
forgery  fell  into  his  hands.  As  far  as  possible  he  contra 
dicted  it ;  but  it  was  too  late  to  expose  the  political  crime 
fully.  In  those  days  railroads  and  telegraph  lines  were 
few.  The  "  National  Intelligencer,"  "  Portland  Adver 
tiser,"  and  "  Ohio  State  Journal  "  were  among  the  papers 


THE  LIBERTY— FREE  SOIL— REPUBLICAN  PARTY.   355 

that  published  this  forgery,  and  the  Whig  State  Com 
mittee  of  Indiana  issued  a  public  address  containing  it ; 
but  the  original  contrivers  of  the  forgery  were  doubtless 
at  New  York.  The  probable  knowledge  by  Horace  Gree- 
ley  of  this  electioneering  trick  and  the  evasiveness  of  his 
disclaimer  put  an  end  to  the  friendly  relations  between 
him  and  Mr.  Birney.  Mr.  Greeley  gave  orders  that  Mr. 
Birney's  name  should  not  be  mentioned  in  the  "  Tribune  " 
thereafter,*  and  carefully  avoided  all  mention  of  it  in  his 
large  work  on  the  history  of  the  anti-slavery  conflict,  ex 
cept  in  the  election  returns.  His  malice  ended  only  with 
Mr.  Birney's  death.  The  effect  of  the  "  Garland  forgery  " 
probably  was  to  diminish  Mr.  Birney's  vote  at  least  half. 
In  Ohio,  where  it  was  not  exposed  except  in  one  or  two 
counties  of  the  northeastern  part  of  the  State,  Mr.  Birney 
lost  several  thousand  votes,  most  of  which  went  to  Mr. 
Clay.  The  Whigs  carried  the  State  by  a  plurality  of  more 
than  six  thousand.  In  New  York  the  Whigs  gained 
largely,  cutting  down  to  15,812  the  Liberty  party  vote  of 
16,275  cast  in  1843  at  the  State  election.  In  spite  of  the 
forgery  the  Liberty  party  polled  62,263  votes  in  all  the 
States. 

This  campaign  was  the  last  in  Mr.  Birney's  public 
career ;  it  left  the  party  well  organized,  harmonious,  hope 
ful,  and  nearly  nine  hundred  per  cent  stronger  than  in 
1840.  What  it  might  have  accomplished  under  his  wise 
and  able  leadership,  if  his  health  had  been  spared,  how 
many  false  moves  and  schisms  it  would  have  avoided,  can 
only  be  conjectured.  In  the  summer  of  1845  he  was  dis 
abled  by  an  accident.  From  that  time  to  his  death  he 
was  an  invalid.  /  He  had  given  twelve  years  of  his  life  to 
save  the  country  of  his  love  from  slavery,  disunion,  and 

*  This  is  stated  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Robert  Carter,  then  one  of 
the  sub-editors  of  the  "  Tribune." 


356  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

civil  war.  Becoming  aware  in  1833  of  the  dreams  of 
political  ascendency  in  the  Union  or  of  secession  and  a 
Southern  empire  cherished  by  the  leaders  of  the  slave- 
power,  he  had  devoted  himself  to  the  task  of  transforming 
Kentucky  and  Virginia  into  free  States.  Finding  it  too 
late  to  accomplish  this  or  to  maintain  a  foothold  in  his 
native  State,  and  that  liberty  in  the  Northern  States  was 
menaced,  he  addressed  himself  to  the  task  of  arousing  the 
country  to  a  sense  of  its  danger.  After  the  freedom  of 
mails  and  of  the  press  was  made  sure,  he  strove  to  rally 
the  North  against  the  extension  of  slavery.  The  weak 
ness  shown  by  Northern  Congressmen  in  the  admission  of 
Arkansas,  in  1836,  wras  to  him  ominous  of  further  disas 
ters  in  the  probable  admission  of  Florida  and  Texas  as 
slave  States.  With  each  added  slave  State,  he  knew  that 
the  aggressiveness  of  the  slave  powrer  would  be  increased 
and  the  peaceable  solution  of  the  slavery  question  made 
more  improbable.  He  did  not  doubt  that  slavery  would 
go  down,  if  the  Union  were  dissolved ;  but  he  knew  it 
would  go  down  in  blood.  For  his  country,  he  feared  the 
horrors  of  civil  war.  Hence  the  intensity  of  his  reproba 
tion  of  John  Quincy  Adams  for  refusing  to  vote  against 
the  admission  of  Florida  as  a  slave  State  and  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  Such 
weakness  he  regarded  as  contributing  to  the  chances  of 
civil  war — it  was  unstatesmanlike  and  unpatriotic.  Mr. 
Birney  knew  Southern  men,  their  aspirations,  plans,  and 
power,  better  than  any  other  leading  abolitionist.  He 
never  depreciated  them.  If  he  had  succeeded  in  the 
movement  to  exclude  Florida  and  Texas  as  slave  States, 
and  to  stamp  freedom  upon  the  national  territory  and 
national  policy,  the  civil  war,  with  its  horrors,  might  have 
been  averted.  The  last  years  of  his  life  were  saddened  by 
the  thought  that  slavery  would  not  be  peaceably  abol 
ished. 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

TRAITS   OF  CHARACTER. 

THE  facts  already  narrated  illustrate  some  of  the  quali 
ties  of  James  G.  Birney.  They  do  not  show  the  whole 
man.  From  the  date  of  his  first  marriage  to  the  death  of 
his  wife  in  1839,  he  lived  with  her  in  harmony  and  love. 
His  manner  to  her  was  always  expressive  of  respect  and 
affection.  The  children  were  taught  to  honor  and  obey 
her.  There  was  no  divided  authority.  Her  orders  were 
never  interfered  with.  She  was  his  best  friend,  aiding 
him  with  her  counsel  and  encouraging  him  with  her  sym 
pathy.  In  his  moods  of  depression — for  he  was  human 
and  subject  to  discouragement — she  would  sit  by  him, 
clasping  his  hands  in  hers,  and  read  to  him  softly  from 
the  Psalms  of  David  or  the  promises  of  Scripture.  This 
chased  away  the  evil  spirit.  How  much  of  his  strength 
and  courage  he  owed  to  her  brave  heart  the  world  can 
never  know. 

In  early  manhood  he  spent  much  of  his  time  with  his 
children.  He  joined  them  in  their  boyish  sports,  taught 
them  many  games  of  manly  exercise,  and  entered  heartily 
into  their  glee.  His  uncommon  bodily  activity  made  him 
enjoy  running,  jumping,  and  the  games  at  ball  then  in 
vogue.  He  showed  them  how  to  ride  and  to  row,  to  make 
bows  and  arrows,  snares  and  traps,  to  handle  the  shot-gun, 
and  to  hunt  game.  A  broad  veranda  in  the  rear  of  his 
dwelling  was  used  for  play  in  rainy  weather,  being  fur- 


358  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

nished  with  swings  and  trapezes,  battledores  and  shuttle 
cocks.  He  was  fond  of  music  and  played  the  flute.  In 
every  innocent  way,  home  was  made  attractive  to  the 
children. 

After  he  began  his  career  against  slavery,  his  cheerful 
religious  faith  gradually  deepened  into  Puritan  gravity, 
the  joyous  companion  gave  way  to  the  earnest  man,  and 
the  children  pursued  their  sports  without  his  guidance. 
But  to  them  he  was  always  the  object  of  love  and  venera 
tion.  His  wishes  were  their  law,  the  penalty  of  rare  viola 
tion  being  a  look  varying  from  grave  to  severe.  The  art  of 
command  was  to  him  a  natural  faculty.  As  he  grew  older 
and  years  of  conflict  began  to  tell  on  him,  he  was  less 
demonstrative  of  affection,  but  the  undercurrent  ran 
always  deep  and  strong.  To  his  only  surviving  daughter,* 
he  gave  his  whole  heart.  When  she  was  ten  years  old, 
the  writer,  passing  through  Detroit,  where  she  was  at 
boarding-school,  found  her  on  the  eve  of  an  unexpected 
holiday  and  took  her  with  him  to  Bay  City.  She  was  not 
expected.  "We  reached  our  father's  house  after  dark,  and 
seeing  a  light  in  the  study,  tapped  at  the  door.  Florence 
entered  first.  When  her  father  saw  her,  he  clasped  her  to 
his  breast  and  sobbed  as  if  his  heart  would  break  with  joy. 
It  was  the  only  time  the  writer  ever  saw  him  lose  utterly 
his  self-control.  His  love  for  the  motherless  little  girl 
was  one  of  the  deep  passions  of  his  strong  nature. 

In  the  spring  of  1841,  he  married  Miss  Fitzhugh,  the 
sister  of  Mrs.  Gerrit  Smith,  and  reassembled  his  younger 
children  under  his  own  roof-tree.  This  marriage,  also, 
was  a  happy  one.  The  lady  had  a  large  property.  This 
was  secured  by  Mr.  Birney,  against  her  expressed  wishes, 
to  her  separate  use  and  control ;  and  he  ever  after  re 
frained  from  using  any  part  of  it,  or  doing  anything  in 

*  Now  Mrs.  Florence  B.  Jennison,  of  Bay  City,  Michigan. 


TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER.  359 

regard  to  it,  except  advising  as  to  investments  and  man 
agement. 

His  own  fortune,  largely  increased  by  judicious  invest 
ments  after  leaving  Kentucky,  was  mostly  spent  in  his 
public  career.  When  he  returned  from  England  in 
November,  1840,  he  found  his  means  so  much  reduced 
that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  replenish.  He  effected 
this  by  purchasing  a  large  quantity  of  land  on  the  Sagi- 
naw  River,  Michigan.  Part  of  it  is  now  within  the  limits 
of  the  flourishing  Bay  City.  The  rise  in  value  of  these 
lands  placed  him  in  comfortable  circumstances  and  en 
abled  him  to  convey,  during  his  life,  a  moderate  property 
to  each  of  his  children,  reserving  enough  for  his  own 
ample  support.  He  thought  this  much  better  than  devis 
ing  it  to  them  by  will.  In  his  business  arrangements,  he 
was  exact.  His  papers  were  drawn  with  legal  skill,  and 
his  bargains  were  made  so  clearly  that  differences  were 
avoided.  So  far  as  the  writer  knows,  Mr.  Birney  was 
never  party  to  a  civil  suit,  either  as  plaintiff  or  de 
fendant.  Between  1840  and  1845  he  sold  in  small  par 
cels,  partly  for  cash  and  partly  on  time,  some  fifteen  thou 
sand  acres  of  land  in  western  Ohio  and  eastern  Indiana. 
Many  of  the  purchasers  defaulted  on  the  deferred  pay 
ments,  and  some  had  lost  their  bonds  for  title ;  but  he 
had  duplicates  of  the  papers,  and  the  whole  business  was 
adjusted  without  complaint  on  the  part  of  the  debtors. 
He  was  a  generous  creditor. 

Very  early  in  life  he  adopted  the  maxim,  "  Pay  as 
you  go."  He  had  no  store  accounts,  no  small  debts, 
except  the  grocer's  bill,  which  was  paid  weekly  or 
monthly.  He  gave  no  notes,  except  on  large  transac 
tions,  and  these  were  met  punctually.  So  were  the  wages 
of  employes. 

We  copy  from  the  "  Life  of  Birney,"  published  in  1844, 
the  following  : 


360  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

In  August,  1839,  Mr.  Birney's  father  closed  his  earthly  career. 
A  father  and  a  son — an  only  son — seemed  to  have  regarded  each 
other  with  a  true  and  tender  love.  The  great  enterprise  to 
which  the  latter  was  devoted  and  which  could  not  be  endured  in 
Kentucky  had  for  a  long  time  withdrawn  them  from  each  other's 
presence.  Just  before  his  father's  death,  Mr.  Birney  visited  him 
and  was  received  by  him,  as  well  as  by  other  friends,  with  all 
cordiality.  He  was  intent  on  making  such  arrangements  as 
would  bring  his  son  into  the  bosom  of  his  old  age,  where  he 
might  feel  the  soothing  and  sustaining  influence  of  his  many 
virtues.  But  all  such  designs,  however  warmly  cherished,  death 
defeated.  In  the  division  of  his  father's  estate,  his  slaves — twenty  - 
in  number — were,  at  Mr.  Birney's  request,  all  set  off  to  him ; 
and  set  off  to  him  that  to  their  benefit  he  might  apply  the  prin 
ciples  by  which  he  was  controlled.  Accordingly,  he  at  once  re 
stored  to  them  the  freedom  of  which  they  had  been  robbed.  The 
deed  through  which  their  emancipation  was  effected — a  sub 
stantial  and  ever  enduring  monument  of  his  philanthropy,  a  de 
cisive  and  emphatic  proof  of  his  wisdom  and  integrity — can  not 
be  read  without  the  most  grateful  emotion  and  the  most  heathful 
impressions.  Here  it  is  : 

KNOW  ALL  MEN  BY  THESE  PRESENTS, 

That,  /,  James  G.  Birney,  late  of  Kentucky,  hit  now  having  my 
residence  in  the  city  of  New  York,  believing  that  slave-holding  is 
inconsistent  with  natural  justice,  with  the  precepts  and  spirit  of 
the  Christian  religion,  and  with  the  Declaration  of  American  In 
dependence,  and  wishing  to  testify  in  favor  of  them  all,  do  here 
by  emancipate,  and  forever  set  free,  the  following  named  slaves 
which  have  come  into  my  possession  .as  one  of  the  heirs  of  my 
father,  the  late  James  Birney,  of  Jefferson  County,  Kentucky, 
they  being  all  the  slaves  held  by  said  James  Birney,  deceased,  at 
the  time  of  his  death. 

Then  follow  their  names  and  descriptions,  and  tlie 
deed  concludes : 

In  testimony  of  the  above,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  name  and 
affixed  my  seal  this  third  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty-nine. 

[SEAL.]  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY. 


TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER.  361 

The  only  condition  on  which  he  could  effect  this  ar 
rangement  with  his  co-heir  was  that  twenty  thousand  dol 
lars  should  be  set  off  against  the  value  of  the  slaves.  This 
was  much  in  excess  of  their  value  in  the  market.  He 
knew  them  all  well  and  that  they  expected  freedom  for 
such  of  them  as  should  be  inherited  by  him,  and  he  was 
unwilling  to  abandon  any  of  them  to  the  chances  of  slav 
ery.  He  did  not  leave  Kentucky  befora  he  had  procured 
employment  and  made  a  moderate  pecuniary  provision 
for  them  all,  and  in  after  years  he  ever  took  a  kindly  in 
terest  in  their  welfare. 

In  manner,  language,  and  action  he  was  always  natu 
ral.  There  was  no  approach  to  affectation  or  eccentricity. 
He  had  the  refinement  which  comes  from  usage  in  society, 
extensive  knowledge,  absence  of  selfishness,  regard  for 
the  rights  of  others,  and  a  strong  feeling  of  piety.  He 
had  no  egotism.  Without  appearing  to  avoid  it  he  never 
spoke  of  himself  except  when  necessary.  In  all  his  public 
life  he  never  compared  himself  with  his  fellow-workers  in 
the  anti-slavery  cause.  It  is  true  that,  in  a  report  of  re 
marks  made  in  1837  by  Mr.  Walker  at  an  anti-slavery 
convention  in  Boston,  Mr.  Birney  is  represented  as  having 
said  that  his  "  trumpet  would  never  have  roused  the  coun 
try,  Garrison  alone  could  do  it."  Some  statement  of  the 
kind  may  have  been  made  by  Mr.  Walker  or  it  may  have 
been  due  to  the  zeal  and  imagination  of  the  secretary,  Mr. 
Garrison,  or  the  person  who  condensed  his  long  speech 
into  a  few  lines.  Mr.  Walker's  object  was  to  obtain  aid 
and  relief  for  the  "  Liberator,"  which  was  then  in  a  mori 
bund  condition,  and  Mr.  Birney's  indorsement  was  a  valu 
able  one.  Mr.  Walker  must  have  spoken  from  hearsay 
among  the  friends  of  Mr.  Garrison,  with  whom  trumpet 
and  trumpet  call  were  pet  phrases.  He  gave  neither  time 
nor  place  nor  occasion  of  the  imputed  remark,  and  Mr. 
Birney  was  in  the  West  when  Mr.  Walker  made  his  speech. 
17 


362  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND  HIS  TIMES. 

No  one  who  knew  Mr.  Birney  would  believe  that  he  ever 
spoke  of  his  "  trumpet "  or  compared  himself  with  any 
other  worker  in  the  abolition  cause.  His  modesty  and 
dignity  both  forbade  it. 

That  he  ever  approved  the  peculiar  methods  of  Mr. 
Garrison  is  untrue.  In  1833,  in  a  published  essay,  he 
had  applied  the  term  "rhapsodies"  to  Mr.  Garrison's 
"  Thoughts  "  (see  page  126).  In  1835,  in  a  speech  at  Bos 
ton,  he  had  deprecated  the  use  of  personalities  by  anti- 
slavery  writers,  and  the  implied  estimate  of  Mr.  Garrison 
was  never  modified  in  any  of  his  letters,  reports,  speeches, 
or  pamphlets.  If  he  had  changed  his  opinion  he  was 
magnanimous  enough  to  say  so,  and  there  were  numerous 
occasions  when  he  might  have  done  so  publicly ;  but  his 
kindness  of  heart  never  led  him  to  say  or  write  what  he 
did  not  believe. 

He  took  pleasure  in  speaking  well  of  prominent  anti- 
slavery  men  and  of  their  writings  and  labors.  There  was 
no  trace  of  jealousy  in  his  nature.  He  was  appreciative 
of  the  talents  of  Bailey,  Chase,  Sumner,  the  Tappans, 
Weld,  Stanton,  Phelps,  Alvan  Stewart,  Samuel  Lewis, 
Goodell,  and  others.  The  fiery  poetry  of  Whittier  awak 
ened  all  his  enthusiasm,  and  the  pathetic  tenderness  of 
Mrs.  Stowe  touched  his  sensibilities.  In  regard  to  Mr. 
Garrison,  however,  he  was  silent.  The  only  departure 
from  this  course  remembered  by  the  writer  was  in  his 
answer  to  an  urgent  demand  by  a  friend  for  his  opinion. 
It  was,  in  effect,  that  Mr.  Garrison  was  sincere  in  his  con 
victions. 

He  cultivated  social  relations  with  anti-slavery  leaders. 
For  them  he  kept  open  house  after  the  fashion  of  old 
Kentucky  hospitality.  Nearly  all  of  them  were  his  guests 
during  his  residence  in  New  York.  Among  the  few  ex 
ceptions  Mr.  Garrison  must  be  numbered. 

A  remarkable  peculiarity  in  Mr.   Birney's   character 


TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER.  363 

was  his  freedom  from  censoriousness.  On  religious  prin 
ciple  he  judged  not.  In  his  family  he  discountenanced 
disparaging  remarks  about  acquaintances.  Gossip  was 
offensive  to  him.  Thinking  evil,  he  was  wont  to  say, 
grows  on  us  by  speaking  of  it.  Avoid  both.* 

Mr.  Birney  had  no  quarrels  with  his  coadjutors.  He 
had  no  slights  to  resent,  no  controversies  to  fight  out,  no 
personal  grievances  to  avenge.  He  was  true  to  his 
friends  and  they  were  true  to  him.  To  the  enemies  of 
his  cause  he  was  urbane  and  just.  In  all  his  relations 
with  his  fellow-men  he  well  sustained  "the  grand  old 
name  of  gentleman." 

He  had  no  personal  vanity.  Though  he  kept  himself 
in  vigorous  physical  condition  and  was  always  faultless  in 
his  dress,  he  was  shy  of  daguerreotypers,  photographers, 
portrait  painters,  and  sculptors.  The  only  two  engravings 
of  him  were  both  made  without  his  knowledge  or  consent 
— the  first  from  a  replica  surreptitiously  made  by  the  artist 
of  a  portrait,f  for  which  he  sat  at  the  request  of  a  very 
dear  friend,  a  wealthy  merchant  of  Cincinnati,  who  wanted 
it  for  his  parlor,  and  the  second  from  a  daguerreotype 
taken  for  a  friend  in  New  York.  While  he  esteemed 
highly  the  appreciation  of  good  men  he  was  not  accessible 
to  flattery,  and  his  look  of  amused  surprise  was  enough  to 
arrest  at  once  the  gushing  language  of  a  sycophant.  In 
the  days  of  his  celebrity  he  received  many  poems  of  praise, 
printed  and  written,  from  enthusiastic  admirers ;  but  he 

*  Garrison's  sons  (1  G.,  page  431)  charge  Mr.  Birney  with  having  been 
active  in  "  poisoning  the  English  mind  against  Mr.  Garrison  "  in  1840.  No 
proof  is  given,  and  the  charge  is  absurd.  Garrison  had  discredited  him 
self  in  England  by  refusing  to  sit  in  the  World's  Convention  because  it 
declined  to  admit  women  as  members  and  by  taking  at  its  daily  meetings 
a  conspicuous  position  in  the  gallery  with  the  rejected  women  around 
him.  This  attitudinizing  for  notoriety  was  not  pleasing  to  the  English. 

f  See  frontispiece. 


364:  JAMES  G.  BI11NEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

published  none  of  them  and  preserved  none  except  Whit- 
tier's.  He  used  to  say  that  a  reformer  was  like  an  orator, 
unable  to  do  his  best  work  unless  he  was  wholly  uncon 
scious  of  the  "little  me."  He  assumed  no  honors  not  his 
due  and  did  not  permit  them  to  be  thrust  upon  him.  On 
one  occasion  he  entered  the  World's  Convention  while 
O'Connell  was  speaking.  The  Irish  orator,  who  had  con 
ceived  a  high  regard  for  him,  welcomed  him  with,  "  I  see 
my  friend  Judge  Birney  coming  in."  The  answer  came 
promptly,  "  I  am  not  a  judge."  "  You  well  deserve  to  be 
one,"  replied  O'Connell  amid  the  cheers  of  the  audience. 

Mr.  Birney  was  one  of  the  vice  -  presidents  of  the 
Wrorld's  Convention  of  1840,  having  been  unanimously 
designated  for  that  honor  by  the  American  delegates.  His 
reputation  as  an  honorable  presiding  officer  had  been  al 
ready  established.  He  had  in  rare  degree  that  combina 
tion  of  dignity,  firmness,  courtesy,  promptitude  of  de 
cision,  tact,  and  knowledge  of  parliamentary  rules  which 
enables  a  man  to  guide  the  proceedings  of  large  delibera 
tive  bodies,  a  combination  which  few  speakers  of  the 
American  House  of  Representatives,  except  Henry  Clay 
and  James  Gillespie  Blaine,  have  possessed.  The  last  act 
of  his  public  life  was  to  preside  over  the  Southern  and 
Western  Liberty  Convention,  held  at  Cincinnati,  June  llth 
and  12th,  1845.  Two  thousand  delegates  were  present 
and  as  many  more  spectators.  A  stormy  discussion  was 
anticipated  over  the  proposed  "  Address  to  the  People  of 
the  United  States."  This  important  paper  had  been  pre 
pared  mainly  by  the  lion.  S.  P.  Chase,  and  had  been  sub 
mitted  by  him  to  the  executive  committee  of  the  Ohio 
Liberty  party.  Several  members  of  that  committee,  the 
writer  included,  had  strongly  disapproved  certain  passages 
which  they  thought  would  be  interpreted  as  overtures  to 
the  Democratic  party  for  coalition.  Mr.  Chase  was  well 
known  to  favor  such  a  movement.  Under  the  counsel  of 


TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER.  365 

Mr.  Birney,  who  had  read  Mr.  Chase's  paper,  a  motion 
was  passed  to  appoint  a  committee  to  prepare  an  address 
to  the  people.  That  body  promptly  expurgated  Mr. 
Chase's  production  and  reported  it  without  mention  of 
the  omitted  passages.  It  was  adopted  by  acclamation. 
As  published  it  is  one  of  the  best  political  essays  of  the 
period.* 

The  convention,  under  the  wise  guidance  of  Mr.  Bir 
ney,  was  a  gigantic  and  harmonious  popular  demonstra 
tion.  Arthur  Tappan  was  accustomed  to  say  of  Mr.  Bir 
ney  that  he  was  the  best  presiding  officer  in  the  country 
for  large  conventions. 

An  amusing  account,  somewhat  colored  by  prejudices 
contracted  by  the  author  in  her  after  life,  is  given  of 
him  by  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  the  leader  of  the 
woman's  suffrage  movement,  in  her  recently  published 
"  Keminiscences."  The  reader  should  bear  in  mind  that 
Henry  B.  Stanton  was  one  of  Mr.  Birney's  most  intimate 
friends,  that  the  two  were  on  their  way  to  a  convention 
composed  chiefly  of  grave  Englishmen,  and  that  the  young 
wife  was  a  spirited  American  girl,  whose  gay  and  frolic 
some  humor  was  not  restrained  by  conventionalities.  She 
has  forgotten  to  put  into  her  "  Reminiscences "  the  fact 
that  on  a  public  occasion  she  had  pinned  papers  to  her 
husband's  coat  and  joined  in  the  laugh  at  his  expense. 
Imagine  her  doing  such  a  thing  at  the  World's  Conven 
tion  !  She  certainly  "  needed  considerable  toning  down 
before  reaching  England."  Mr.  Birney  enjoyed  her  pla}T- 
f ul  badinage  very  much,  and  ever  after  spoke  of  her  with 
high  appreciation  of  her  intellect  and  kind  regard  for  her 
personally.  He  gave  her  credit,  too,  for  being  the  pink  of 
propriety  while  in  England.  Here  is  what  Mrs.  Stanton 
says  : 

*  See  edition  of  1867,  published  by  Bancroft  &  Co.,  Philadelphia. 


366  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

James  G.  Birney,  the  anti-slavery  nominee  for  the  presidency, 
joined  us  in  New  York,  and  was  a  fellow-passenger  on  the  Mon 
treal  for  England.  He  and  my  husband  were  alike  delegates  to 
the  World  Anti-Slavery  Convention,  and  alike  interested  them 
selves  in  my  anti-slavery  education.  They  gave  me  books  to 
read,  and  as  we  paced  the  deck  day  by  day  it  was  the  chief 
theme  of  our  conversation. 

Mr.  Birney  was  a  polished  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  and 
excessively  proper  and  punctilious  in  manner  and  conversation. 
I  soon  perceived  that  he  thought  I  needed  considerable  toning 
down  before  reaching  England.  I  was  quick  to  see  and  under 
stand  that  his  criticisms  of  others  in  a  general  way,  and  the  drift 
of  his  discourses  on  manners  and  conversation  had  a  nearer  appli 
cation  than  he  intended  I  should  discover,  though  he  hoped  I 
would  profit  by  them.  I  was  always  grateful  to  any  one  who 
took  an  interest  in  my  improvement,  so  I  laughingly  told  him 
one  day  that  he  need  not  make  his  criticisms  any  longer  in  that 
roundabout  way,  but  take  me  squarely  in  hand  and  polish  me 
up  as  speedily  as  possible  before  the  end  of  the  voyage.  Sitting 
in  the  saloon  at  night,  after  a  game  of  chess,  in  which  per 
chance  I  had  been  the  victor,  I  felt  complacent,  and  would 
sometimes  say  : 

"  Well,  what  have  I  done  or  said  to  day  open  to  criticism  ? " 

So,  in  the  most  gracious  manner,  he  replied,  on  one  occasion  : 

"  You  went  to  mast-head  in  a  chair,  which  I  think  very 
unladylike  ;  still  worse,  you  rolled  up  a  bread-ball  at  dinner  and 
hit  Captain  Montgomery  square  on  the  nose.  I  heard  you  call 
your  husband  *  Henry '  in  the  presence  of  strangers,  which  is  not 
permissible  in  polite  society.  You  should  always  say  '  Mr.  Stan- 
ton.'  You  have  taken  three  moves  back  in  this  game." 

"Bless  me,"  I  replied,  u  what  a  catalogue  in  one  day  !  I 
fear  my  mentor  wrill  despair  of  my  ultimate  perfection." 

"I  should  have  more  hope,"  he  replied,  "if  you  seemed  to 
feel  my  rebukes  more  deeply,  but  you  evidently  think  them  of  too 
little  consequence  to  be  much  disturbed  over  them."  .  .  . 

As  the  voyage  lasted  eighteen  days — for  we  were  in  an  old- 
fashioned  sailing-vessel — we  had  time  to  make  some  improve 
ment,  or  at  least  to  consider  all  friendly  suggestions.  However, 
as  we  traveled  with  Mr.  Birney  for  nine  months  in  England, 


TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER,  367 

Scotland,  and  France,  and  had  the  advantage  of  his  strict  ideas 
of  etiquette  at  every  turn,  we  really  were  improved  in  many  minor 
points  of  manner  we  had  considered  unimportant.  Mr.  Birney 
often  quoted  Chesterfield's  remarks.  Being  asked  the  secret  of 
success  in  life,  he  replied  :  "  It  depends,  more  than  any  one  thing, 
on  manner,  manner,  manner."  Hence  I  conjure  all  my  young 
readers  to  cultivate  polite  affable  manners.  .  .  . 

When  within  sight  of  the  distant  shore  a  pilot -boat  came 
along  and  offered  to  take  any  one  ashore  in  six  hours.  I  was  so 
delighted  at  the  thought  of  seeing  land  that  after  much  per 
suasion  Mr.  Stanton  and  Mr.  Birney  consented  to  go.  Accord 
ingly  we  were  lowered  into  a  boat  in  an  arm-chair,  with  a  lunch 
eon  consisting  of  cold  chicken,  a  bottle  of  wine,  and  a  few 
pickles.  Thus  provisioned,  wre  started  with  just  wind  enough  for 
that  light  craft  in  the  direction  we  were  going  ;  but  instead  of 
six  hours  we  were  all  day,  and  as  the  twilight  deepened  and  the 
last  breeze  died  away  the  pilot  said  :  "We  are  now  only  two 
miles  from  shore,  but  the  only  way  you  can  reach  there  to-night 
is  by  a  row-boat." 

As  we  had  no  provisions  left  and  nowhere  to  sleep,  we  were 
glad  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  row-boat.  It  was  a  bright  moonlight 
night,  the  air  balmy,  the  waters  smooth,  and  with  two  good, 
stout  oarsmen  we  glided  swiftly  along.  As  Mr.  Birney  made  the 
last  descent  and  seated  himself,  doubtful  as  to  our  ever  reaching 
the  shore,  turning  to  me,  he  said,  "  The  woman  tempted  me  and 
I  did  leave  the  good  ship."  However,  we  did  reach  the  shore 
at  midnight  and  landed  at  Torquay,  one  of  the  loveliest  spots  in 
that  country,  and  our  journey  to  Exeter  the  next  day  lay  through 
the  most  beautiful  scenery  in  England. 

While  in  England  Mr.  Birney  visited  different  parts  of 
the  kingdom  and  addressed  audiences  under  the  auspices 
of  the  British  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery  Society.  In  an 
swer  to  a  claim  made  in  behalf  of  the  American  churches 
that  their  influence  was  thrown  against  slavery,  he  pub 
lished  in  a  London  daily  paper  authentic  evidence  of  pro- 
slavery  acts  of  some  of  the  leading  churches.  It  is  be 
lieved  that  no  error  of  diminution,  exaggeration,  or  mis- 


368  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

statement  was  ever  attributed  to  this  document.  He  was 
careful  to  give  due  credit  to  several  sects  for  their  anti- 
slavery  action.  In  conclusion  he  asked  the  reader  to — 

bear  in  mind  that  the  foregoing  presents  but  one  side  of  the 
anti- slavery  cause  in  the  several  churches  whose  proceedings  have 
been  considered,  and  that  in  them  all  there  are  abolitionists 
earnestly  laboring  to  purify  them  from  the  defilements  of  slaver}7 
and  that  they  have  strong  encouragement  to  proceed.  .  .  .  Last 
ly,  we  take  pleasure  in  assuring  him  that  there  are  considerable 
portions  of  the  Methodist,  Baptist,  and  Presbyterian  Churches,  as 
well  as  the  entire  membership  of  some  of  the  smaller  religious 
bodies  in  America,  that  maintain  a  commendable  testimony 
against  slavery  and  its  abominations. 

This  is  the  language  of  a  friend  of  the  Church,  anxious 
for  purity  first,  then  peace.  The  article  made  a  sensa 
tion.  It  was  published  in  pamphlet-form  in  London,  and 
was  subsequently  republished  in  several  editions  in  this 
country. 

When  Parker  Pillsbury,  Garrison,  S.  S.  Foster,  and 
others,  made  their  onslaught  on  the  Church  itself,  they 
sought  to  cover  themselves  under  the  authority  of  Mr. 
Birney  and  identify  him  with  their  cause.  They  made 
some  impression  on  the  public  mind  by  quoting  the  title 
which  had  been  given  to  the  pamphlet,  "  The  American 
Churches  the  Bulwarks  of  American  Slavery."  This  quo 
tation  was  misleading.  Mr.  Birney  had  no  sympathy  with 
Mr.  Pillsbury  and  his  associates.  Up  to  1840  it  was  prob 
ably  true  that  ninety-nine  abolitionists  out  of  a  hundred 
were  church-members  and  that  the  clergy  as  a  body  con 
tained  more  abolitionists  than  any  other  class  in  propor 
tion  to  their  number.  This  was  recognized  fully  by  Mr. 
Birney. 

After  he  left  England,  the  executive  committee  of  the 
British  and  Foreign  Anti- Slavery  Society  passed  the  fol 
lowing  resolution : 


TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER.  369 

That  this  committee  are  deeply  sensible  of  the  services  ren 
dered  to  the  anti-slavery  cause  by  their  esteemed  friend  and  co 
adjutor  James  Gillespie  Birney,  Esq.,  while  in  this  country,  in  a 
course  of  laborious  efforts,  in  which  his  accurate  and  extensive 
information,  his  wise  and  judicious  counsels,  and  his  power  of 
calm  and  convincing  statement,  have  become  eminently  con 
spicuous. 

He  shared  the  hospitalities  of  many  of  the  eminent 
men  of  England  and  became  widely  known.  Two  years 
afterward  President  Kellogg,  of  Illinois,  traveled  through 
England.  On  his  return  he  described  as  follow  s  the  im 
pression  left  there  by  Mr.  Birney  : 

It  was  truly  refreshing  to  me  while  I  was  in  Great  Britain, 
amid  the  many  complaints  against  my  countrymen  to  which  I 
was  obliged  to  listen,  to  hear  our  excellent  friend  James  G.  Bir 
ney  so  frequently  spoken  of  and  always  in  terms  of  unqualified 
approbation  and  respect.  The  mention  of  his  name  in  those  cir 
cles  in  which  he  was  known,  and  they  were  both  numerous  and 
extensive,  invariably  imparted  pleasure,  and  many  were  the  in 
quiries  which  were  made  in  respect  to  his  welfare,  i  could  not 
but  observe  that  intelligent  men  both  in  England  and  Scotland 
very  highly  appreciated  him  for  that  trait  in  his  character  which 
I  have  always  from  my  first  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Birney  re 
garded  as  exhibited  by  him  in  a  remarkable  degree.  You  will 
doubtless  understand  me  as  referring  to  his  candor.  He  never 
deals  in  exaggeration  or  sophistry.  In  his  public  addresses  and 
discussions,  which  were  numerous  in  that  country  as  well  as  in 
his  private  conversations,  by  the  sobriety  of  his  own  views,  by 
the  fairness  and  fullness  with  which  he  stated  the  positions  and 
arguments  of  his  opponents,  and  by  the  manliness  with  which  he 
met  and  refuted  them,  he  ever  impressed  his  auditors  with  a  con 
viction  of  the  soundness  of  his  sentiments  and  of  the  perfect  re 
liance  which  might  be  placed  upon  his  statements.  The  visits  of 
such  men  to  foreign  lands  are  an  honor  to  our  country,  and  leave 
behind  them  a  savor  which  is  grateful  to  an  American  citizen. 

The  quality  of  character  which  made  such  a  lasting 
impression  on  the  English  was  recognized  by  his  own 


370  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

countrymen.     The  Rev.  Beriah  Green,  D.  D.,  writing  of 
him  in  1844,  testified  as  follows  : 

He  had  access  to  great  numbers  of  his  fellow-citizens,  upon 
whom  he  was  enabled  to  urge  the  claims  of  the  enslaved.  The 
influence  he  exerted  was  as  benign  as  it  was  powerful.  His  in 
telligence,  truthfulness,  and  candor,  his  magnanimity  and  fidel 
ity,  all  who  had  the  privilege  of  an  acquaintance  with  him  were 
not  a  little  struck  with.  They  were  admitted  to  be  noteworthy 
traits  of  his  character.  He  was  generally  listened  to  with  re 
spectful  attention.  If  his  doctrines  were  not  subscribed  to  his 
character  wras  admired.  We  well  remember  that  an  old  lawyer 
from  New  England,  after  a  discussion  with  him  on  points  on 
which  they  were  at  variance,  exclaimed,  "  He  is  the  most  candid 
man  I  ever  saw  !  "  On  those  who  were  often  in  his  presence  and 
enjoyed  his  confidence  his  words  and  deeds  made  the  impression 
of  great  wisdom.  They  looked  up  to  him  for  counsel.  Wher 
ever  he  applied  his  hand  they  expected  well-advised  plans  and 
valuable  results. 

In  familiar  conversation  he  was  a  sympathetic  listener 
and  good  talker.  A  delicate  humor,  inherited  it  may  be 
from  his  Irish  ancestors,  a  gentle  irony  pointing  a  repartee 
or  suggesting  an  argument,  a  human  interest  in  all  sub 
jects,  and  entire  freedom  from  biting  sarcasm,  scandal,  and 
censoriousness  made  him  a  delightful  companion.  He 
was  not  a  man  of  one  idea.  Intelligent  women  liked  to 
talk  with  him.  Sometimes  he  was  epigrammatic,  con 
densing  much  wisdom  in  a  few  words.  To  one  of  his 
sons  he  said : 

When  you  are  conscious  that  it  will  gratify  you  to  say  some 
thing  to  the  discredit  of  another  don't  say  it. 

To  a  man  who  asked  him  why  he  did  not  go  South  to 
fight  slavery,  he  answered : 

If  a  man  were  hired  to  kill  a  den  of  venomous  snakes  it 
would  show  that  he  was  insane  if  he  jumped  into  the  den. 

His  opinion  of  good  story-tellers  was  thus  expressed : 


TRAITS  OF  CHARACTER.  371 

One  who  can  keep  the  whole  company  in  a  roar  while  the 
muscles  of  his  own  face  are  entirely  under  his  control  ought  not 
to  be  sought  as  a  friend.  He  will  be  found  wanting  in  heart. 

His  views  on  the  civil  service  were  in  advance  of  his 
times : 

Rotation  in  office  is  radically  unsound  as  a  dogma.  Offices 
are  created  for  the  public  good,  not  for  the  incumbents. 

He  admired  Daniel  O'Connell  as  a  man,  but  thought  he 
failed  because  he  had  made  the  mistake  of  reMng  on  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  as  his  main  auxiliary.  Said  he : 

O'Connell  has  had  his  heels  tripped  up  by  the  politicians, 
Peel,  and  the  Pope,  and  he  must  submit  to  it. 

He  criticised  Daniel  Webster  for  eulogizing  the  de 
ceased  General  Jackson,  and  thought  it  inconsistent  with 
Webster's  declaration  in  1830  that  "  Jackson  always  looked 
as  if  he  were  anxious  to  escape  from  the  society  of  gentle 
men,"  and  also  with  Webster's  published  opinions  respect 
ing  Jackson's  Administration. 

The  following  illustrates  his  shrewdness  of  observation  : 

An  eccentric  man,  one  affectedly  so,  is  pleased  with  your  no 
tice  of  his  peculiarities.  One  who  is  really  so  laments  them  and 
is  mortified  when  they  are  pointed  out  to  him,  looking  on  them, 
as  they  truly  are,  as  evidences  of  a  want  of  good  sense. 

One  or  two  other  sayings  of  his  must  close  our  se 
lection  : 

Working  for  the  benefit  of  the  human  race  is  a  surer  path  to 
true  fame  than  high  office  is.  Jesus  Christ  is  better  known  than 
Pontius  Pilate.  .  .  .  Moral  suasion,  as  it  is  called,  is  about  as  in 
effectual  and  ridiculous  as  any  plan  can  be  for  putting  down 
slavery.  It  makes  its  advocates  appear  as  if  they  were  very  ig 
norant  of  men,  of  large  affairs,  or  of  the  just  powers  of  govern 
ment.  It  is  only  fit  for  visionaries.  .  .  .  The  Whig  party  in 
Congress  gives  what  men  and  money  Mr.  Polk  calls  for  to  carry 


372  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND  HIS  TIMES, 

on  with  Mexico  a  war  which  they  say  is  unconstitutional.  This 
is  a  mistake.  Mr.  Polk  will  be  as  sure  to  conquer  Mexico  and 
compel  her  to  give  a  large  portion  of  her  territory  to  us  as  a  re 
muneration  for  our  expenses  as  might  prevails  over  right ;  and  in 
final  success  the  nation  will  condone  his  faults. 

In  endeavoring  to  present  the  leading  traits  of  one  so 
dear  we  have  deferred  to  the  prejudices  of  general  readers 
against  biographies  written  under  the  bias  of  filial  affec 
tion  and  relied  upon  facts  and  the  representations  of 
friends  who  knew  him.  We  close  this  part  of  our  subject 
with  an  extract  from  page  116  of  the  "  Life  of  Birney," 
written  by  Beriah  Green,  President  of  Oneida  Institute, 
New  York : 

An  affectionate  regard  for  the  Divine  authority  cherished  in  a 
manly  soul  is  the  root  of  every  human  virtue.  It  is  the  secret  of 
sound  character.  Wisdom,  strength,  and  beauty — these  are  the 
natural  fruits.  Where  this  is,  there  you  may  find  veracity,  sim 
plicity,  modesty,  candor,  united  with  courage,  decision,  fidelity; 
there  you  may  find  disinterestedness,  generosity,  and  magna 
nimity.  And  we  demand  of  those  who.  are  best  acquainted  with 
him,  for  which  of  these  qualities  is  not  James  G.  Birney  remark 
able  ? 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 
TWELVE   YEARS  AN  INVALID— CONCLUSION. 

Ix  August,  1845,  on  the  invitation  of  my  father,  I 
spent  a  few  weeks  with  him  at  his  home  on  the  Saginaw 
River,  Michigan.  He  was  in  fine  health  and  spirits,  and 
joined  me  in  the  sports  of  hunting  and  fishing.  The  rice 
grass  on  the  farther  side  of  the  river  was  a  favorite  feed 
ing-ground  for  ducks.  Through  this  we  worked  our  way 
in  a  light  canoe,  getting  shots  as  the  birds  rose  into  the 
air.  He  was  generally  successful  in  dropping  them  just 
as  they  turned  to  a  horizontal  flight  from  an  upward 
movement  to  clear  the  tall  grass.  When  we  had  bagged 
game  enough  for  next  day's  dinner  he  would  take  the 
paddle  and  speed  the  frail  vessel  homeward.  At  other 
times  he  would  troll  for  large  fish.  In  this  sport  a  line 
from  fifty  to  a  hundred  feet  long,  with  a  strong  triple 
hook  covered  with  bits  of  red  and  white  flannel,  is  trailed 
behind  the  canoe.  To  this  the  simple  muskallonge  rises, 
seizing  the  deceptive  bait  and  rushing  away  wTith  it.  A 
pull  upon  the  line,  strong  enough  if  it  were  made  at  right 
angles  to  upset  the  unstable  bark,  shows  the  game  is 
hooked.  Then  the  battle  begins.  Skill  and  judgment 
are  on  one  side,  desperation  and  strength  on  the  other. 
The  man  "  plays  "  out  his  line  and  avoids  all  direct  con 
tests  ;  the  great  fish  dashes  to  the  bottom  of  the  river  and 
exhausts  its  strength  in  vain  efforts  to  free  itself  by  flight 
from  the  barbed  torment  in  its  mouth.  Then  it  is  brought 
to  the  surface  by  a  steady  pull  on  the  line.  As  it  nears 


374  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND   HIS  TIMES. 

the  canoe,  its  glaring  eyes  and  great  wide  open  red  mouth 
garnished  with  double  rows  of  sharp  teeth  seen  amid  the 
foam  made  by  the  flurries  of  its  tail  give  it  the  aspect  of  a 
monster.  A  scoop  net  passed  adroitly  under  it  aids  in 
getting  it  into  the  canoe,  where  it  is  quickly  dispatched 
with  a  hatchet.  Into  this  sport  my  father  entered  with 
great  zest.  lie  generally  took  the  line  while  I  kept  the 
canoe  in  proper  position,  no  easy  task.  The  capture  of 
one  or  two  fish  ended  the  excursion  for  the  day.  He  took 
no  more  than  enough  for  the  supply  of  his  own  family. 
If  there  was  a  surplus  it  was  sent  to  some  neighbor. 

Part  of  each  day  was  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
garden  and  the  labor  of  burning  the  brush  and  logs  from 
a  lot  near  the  house.  His  tastes,  expertness,  and  strength 
made  these  employments  pleasant  to  him.  His  evenings 
were  generally  spent  in  his  library,  and  were  given  to  cor 
respondence,  study,  and  conversation. 

A  favorite  amusement  of  his  was  riding  on  horseback. 
He  owned  a  pair  of  jet-black  Canadian  ponies.  They  were 
swift  and  moved  well  under  the  saddle.  Mounted  on 
these  we  galloped  over  the  prairies,  enjoying  the  bracing 
air  of  early  morning  or  the  breezes  of  the  evening.  On 
our  last  ride  we  were  moving  rapidly,  side  by  side.  My 
father,  with  extended  hand,  was  pointing  out  to  me  a  ves 
sel  in  the  distant  horizon  making  her  way  under  full  sail 
when  a  prairie  chicken  rose  with  a  whirr  from  under  the 
feet  of  his  pony.  The  animal  shied,  springing  to  one  side, 
and  my  father  was  thrown  heavily  to  the  ground.  I  dis 
mounted  and  ran  to  him.  He  was  already  on  his  feet. 
To  my  inquiries'he  answered,  "  It  was  a  bad  jolt,  my  son, 
but  no  bones  are  broken."  He  held  my  bridle  while  I 
caught  his  pony.  Declining  my  assistance  he  remounted. 
The  place  of  the  accident  was  about  two  miles  from 
home.  We  rode  back  at  an  easy  gallop,  my  father  mak 
ing  no  complaint. 


TWELVE   YEARS  AX   INVALID— CONCLUSION.    375 

Two  hours  later  he  had  a  stroke  of  nervous  paralysis. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  end.  For  the  rest  of  his 
life,  twelve  years  and  three  months,  he  was  an  invalid. 
Partial  recoveries  alternated  with  relapses.  All  that  medi 
cal  science  could  do  for  him  was  done.  The  best  special 
ists  in  nervous  diseases  were  consulted  but  were  unable  to 
effect  more  than  partial  and  intermittent  relief.  While 
for  several  years  his  general  health  was  apparently  unim 
paired  and  his  physical  strength  little  diminished,  he  was 
subject  at  long  and  irregular  intervals  to  recurrences  of 
paralysis  or  to  sudden  and  painful  affections  of  the  digest 
ive  organs.  These  were  so  violent  that  for  years  before 
his  death  he  predicted  one  of  them  would  prove  fatal, 
and  his  prediction  proved  true.  Another  effect  of  the 
disease  was  to  deprive  him  of  the  power  of  articulate 
speech.  .  His  tongue  refused  its  office.  The  man  whose 
enunciation  had  been  so  distinct  that  his  every  word  could 
be  heard  by  thousands  was  unable  in  the  more  severe 
states  of  his  complaint  to  make  himself  intelligible  to  his 
wife  and  children,  or  in  his  best  condition  to  any  except 
to  them  and  very  intimate  friends.  His  only  medium, 
except  gesture,  of  communication  with  others  was  in 
writing.  Even  this  was  impracticable  much  of  the  time 
owing  to  the  tremulousness  of  his  hand,  which  he  was  un 
able  to  hold  steady  except  by  grasping  the  wrist  with  his 
left  hand.  This  physical  difficulty  was  greater  or  less  ac 
cording  to  the  state  of  his  nerves.  In  their  best  condition 
writing  was  for  him  a  slow  and  laborious  process,  and  his 
penmanship  lacked  the  firm  lines  of  former  days ;  in  their 
worst  he  could  scarcely  write  his  name  legibly. 

The  news  of  his  disability  brought  several  of  his  old 
personal  friends  and  some  of  his  political  supporters  to 
his  bedside.  The  mingled  pleasure  and  pain  to  him  of 
these  visits  may  be  imagined  by  the  reader.  He  grasped 
each  one  by  the  hand  and  looked  his  grateful  apprecia- 


376  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY   AND  HIS  TIMES. 

tion,  but  his  answers  to  their  kind  speeches  were  con 
veyed  by  a  deprecatory  wave  of  the  hand  or  a  look  toward 
one  of  the  family  which  was  a  request  to  speak  for  him. 
Gerrit  Smith,  who  was  a  beloved  friend,  had  not  until  his 
visit  comprehended  the  extent  of  the  calamity  and  gave 
way  to  his  feelings.  My  father  was  much  moved,  but  by  a 
simple  gesture  expressed  his  resignation  to  the  Divine  will. 
Before  the  winter  of  1845  he  had  visited  the  Eastern 
cities  for  medical  advice,  and  became  convinced  that  he 
would  never  be  able  to  speak  again  in  public  and  probably 
never  to  articulate  well  enough  for  the  purposes  of  con 
versation.  From  that  time  by  all  practicable  means  he 
made  known  to  the  members  of  the  Anti-Slavery  political 
party  that  he  had  absolutely  and  permanently  withdrawn 
from  public  life,  and  of  his  friends  he  made  the  special 
request  to  prevent  the  offering  or  passage  by  anti-slavery 
conventions  of  resolutions  of  sympathy  with  him.  He 
gave  this  matter  in  charge  to  me  for  Ohio,  and  it  was  not 
without  difficulty  that  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Samuel  Lewis, 
and  other  leaders,  were  persuaded  to  comply  with  his  re 
quest.  From  the  time  of  his  paralysis  to  his  decease  he 
never  made  or  attempted  to  make  a  speech  in  public  or 
attended  or  wrote  a  letter  to  any  anti-slavery  meeting  or 
convention  or  signed  his  name  to  any  publication  of  a 
nature  to  influence  political  action.  Though  often  ur 
gently  requested  to  be  present  or  to  give  his  counsel  in 
writing,  he  thought  it  best  not  to  interferfere  with  the 
men  who  were  actively  engaged  in  the  cause.*  The  clear- 

*  In  the  index  to  Garrison'a^iLife  ''  by  his  sons,  under  the  name  of 
James  G.  Birney,  there  are  the  following  entries  :  "  Secedes  from  Liberty 
party."  The  passage  referred  to  (vol.  iii,  p.  211)  reads  thus : 

"  In  the  second  week  in  June  [18471  a  fourth  party  had  gone  out 
from  it  [the  Liberty  party],  forming  a  Liberty  League  at  Macedon  Lock, 
N.  Y.,  under  the  auspices  of  James  G.  Birney." 

The  next  index  entry  is  "  neglected  as  nominee,"  with  reference  to  a 
passage  on  page  215  of  the  same  volume: 


TWELVE   YEARS  AX  INVALID— CONCLUSION.    377 

ness  and  vigor  of  his  mind  did  not  perceptibly  diminish. 
In  his  writing  intervals  he  jotted  down  his  thoughts  in  a 

"  Birncy's  claims,  too,  whether  for  perpetual  nomination  or  for  in 
cense  or  (now  that  he  was  physically  disabled)  for  sympathy,  were  wholly 
ignored  by  the  convention  (at  Buffalo,  January,  1847).  All  this  fur- 
nished  food  for  conversation  between  Wright  and  Garrison  as  they  jour 
neyed  eastward." 

The  next  index  entry  is  "  favors  colonization,"  vol.  iii,  p.  362,  where 
it  is  charged  that  Mr.  Birney  in  1852  "scandalized  his  old  associates  by 
counseling  expatriation.  .  .  .  Mr.  Garrison  felt  it  incumbent  on  him  to 
make  a  set  speech  against  colonization." 

The  charges  made  and  insinuated  in  the  above  extracts  are  that  James 
G.  Birney  made  claims  upon  the  Buffalo  Convention  for  nomination,  in 
cense,  or  sympathy ;  that,  not  getting  what  he  wanted,  he  seceded  from 
the  Liberty  party  and  aided  in  the  establishment  of  another  party ;  and 
that  he  recanted  his  opposition  to  the  Colonization  Society  as  a  proposed 
remedy  for  slavery.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  the  above  scan 
dals,  published  twenty-two  years  after  the  death  of  James  G.  Birney, 
have  no  foundation  in  fact.  There  were  in  the  Buffalo  Convention  at 
least  a  hundred  of  his  warm  friends,  every  one  of  whom  knew  that  he 
had  permanently  withdrawn  from  public  life  and  desired  that  his  name 
should  not  be  mentioned  in  that  or  any  other  convention.  That  he  was 
at  Macedon  Lock  or  took  any  part  in  the  formation  of  a  fourth  party  or 
seceded  from  the  Liberty  party  is  untrue.  With  the  exception  of  Martin 
Tan  Buren,  in  whose  sincerity  he  lacked  confidence,  he  voted  the  Free 
Soil  and  Republican  tickets,  State  and  national,  as  long  as  he  lived.  The 
charge  touching  colonization  is  a  violent  misrepresentation  of  a  letter 
written  by  him  in  answer  to  some  colored  men  who  wrote  to  ask  his  ad 
vice  as  to  their  emigration  to  some  other  country.  He  thought  that,  in 
view  of  the  bitter  prejudice  in  the  United  States  against  the  blacks,  each 
one  of  them  should  act  in  that  matter  as  he  might  think  best  for  the  in 
terest  of  his  family.  Not  one  word  was  said  in  favor  of  the  Colonization 
Society  or  of  colonization  as  a  remedy  for  slavery.  (See  ante,  p.  268.) 

If  it  were  not  plain  from  the  context  that  these  scandals  emanated 
from  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  their  insidious  malice  and  blundering  in 
accuracy  would  indicate  him  as  the  author.  Much  of  his  life  was  spent 
in  misrepresenting  the  acts  and  blackening  the  character  of  his  coadju 
tors.  He  wronged  Benjamin  Lundy  so  deeply  that  an  eager  offer  to 
write  his  biography  was  indignantly  rejected  by  Lundy's  relatives.  His 
partner  in  the  "  Liberator "  for  eight  or  nine  years  was  Isaac  Knapp ; 


378  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

blank-book  or  wrote  short  articles,  always  anonymous,  for 
leading  newspapers.  In  1850  he  managed  to  write,  a  few 

but  in  a  private  letter  in  1842  to  a  lady  in  London  he  brands  Knapp 
as  a  gambler  and  drunkard.  (G.,  iii,  p.  41.)  Knapp  had  charged  him 
with  "  selfish  and  deceptive  conduct."  (G.,  iii,  p.  38.)  He  professed 
warm  friendship  for  N.  P.  Rogers,  but  aided  in  depriving  him  of  his 
newspaper  and  broke  his  heart.  (G.,  iii,  p.  127.)  He  professed  friend 
ship  for  Frederick  Douglass,  but  abused  him  without  stint  when  Douglass 
refused  to  follow  him  in  his  secession  movement  in  1814.  He  spoke 
harshly  of  the  sisters  Grimke  and  provoked  Sarah's  retort : 

"  His  spirit  of  intolerance  toward  those  who  did  not  draw  in  his  traces 
and  his  adulation  of  those  who  surrendered  themselves  to  his  guidance 
have  always  been  exceedingly  repulsive  to  me."  ("  Tbe  Sisters  Grimke," 
p.  220.) 

Among  those  whom  he  libeled  in  the  "  Liberator  "  were  Dr.  William 
E.  Channing,  Henry  B.  Stanton,  Elizur  Wright,  Amos  A.  Phclps,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  Lewis  Tappan,  and  Arthur  Tappan.  These  were  but  a 
few  of  the  whole  number.  The  jealousy  with  which  he  looked  upon  the 
unprecedented  success  and  influence  of  '*  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  is  reflected 
in  his  biography.  (G.,  iii,  p.  364.)  Of  such  a  man  the  poet  Churchill 
drew  the  picture  when  he  wrote : 

"  With  that  malignant  envy  which  turns  pale 
And  sickens  even  if  a  friend  prevail, 
Which  merit  and  success  pursues  with  hate, 
And  damns  the  worth  it  can  not  imitate." 

Mr.  Garrison  had  a  peculiarity  which  his  sons  pass  over  wilh  the  fol 
lowing  euphemism  : 

"  As  he  had  a  very  poor  memory  for  past  events  even  in  his  own  ex 
perience,  he  seldom  indulged  in  reminiscence."  (G.,  iv,  p.  334.) 

Other  writers  have  not  been  so  lenient.  Rev.  Leonard  G.  Bacon,  in  a 
review  of  his  "Thoughts,"  charged  him  with  garbling  and  false  state 
ments;  Rev.  R.  R.  Gurlcy  with  being  indebted  "to  his  imagination  for 
his  fact"  (ante,  p.  126);  and  between  him  and  Frederick  Douglass  there 
was  an  issue  of  veracity  (G.,  iii,  p.  211).  It  would  have  been  much  bet 
ter  for  Mr.  Garrison's  reputation  if  he  had  never  "  indulged  in  reminis 
cence,"  for  he  was  one  of  those  unfortunate  individuals  in  whose  memory 
facts  have  no  fixity  of  outline  ;  especially  should  he  have  avoided  in 
dulging  in  it  in  relation  to  James  G.  Birr.ey,  toward  whom  he  bore  a 
deadly  hatred  which  grew  stronger  with  years,  and  which  he  appears  to 
have  transmitted  in  all  its  venom  to  his  descendants. 


TWELVE   YEARS  AN   INVALID— CONCLUSION.    379 

sentences  at  a  time,  his  u  Examination  of  the  Decision  of 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court  in  the  Case  of  Strader 
et  al.  vs.  Graham."  This  was  legibly  copied  and  published 
in  pamphlet-form  with  his  name  on  the  title-page.  It  is 
the  argument  of  an  able  lawyer.  The  labor  of  its  prepara 
tion  aggravated  his  malady,  and  he  finally  abandoned  a 
long  cherished  scheme  of  writing  a  historical  work  on 
slavery  in  the  United  States. 

His  interest  in  the  anti-slavery  struggle  was  not  abated. 
He  followed  the  proceedings  in  Congress  and  the  course 
of  public  men  on  the  subject.  His  fears  that  civil  war 
would  result  were  ripened  into  certainty  by  the  outbreak 
of  the  troubles  in  Kansas.  Deploring  this  as  a  national 
calamity  which  might  have  been  averted  by  wisdom  and 
manly  courage  on  the  part  of  statesmen,  he  thought  it 
should  be  used  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave  power  and 
the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery ;  and  he  wrote  his  hope 
that  his  descendants  would  all  do  their  duty  when  the 
conflict  should  come.* 

The  monotony  of  his  isolated  life  at  Bay  City  was 
varied  by  frequent  visits  to  his  married  sons,  to  Gerrit 
Smith,  and  Theodore  D.  Weld.  About  1853,  he  broke  up 

*  When  the  rebellion  broke  out  there  were  six  of  James  G.  Birney's 
descendants  who  were  of  age  to  bear  arms.  James,  the  eldest  son  was 
acting  Governor  of  Michigan  and  was  afterward  actively  employed  in  send 
ing  regiments  to  the  field.  His  son,  James  Gillcspie,  a  youth  of  twenty, 
went  as  cavalry  lieutenant,  became  captain,  and  served  as  staff  officer  for 
both  Ouster  and  Sheridan.  William  enlisted,  was  elected  captain  and 
rose  to  be  brevet  major-general,  serving  in  all  the  intermediate  grades. 
David  Bell  entered  as  lieutenant-colonel,  and  rose  by  regular  promotion 
to  be  major-general  (see  his  biography  by  0.  M.  Davis).  Dion,  a  phy 
sician,  was  lieutenant  and  captain.  FitzJmgh  left  Harvard  University 
to  join  the  army.  He  served  on  McClellan's  staff  and  rose  from  lieuten 
ant  to  colonel  (see  his  biography  by  Prof.  Cutler).  All  these,  ex 
cept  the  writer,  died,  in  or  soon  after  the  war,  of  wounds  received  or 
diseases  contracted  in  the  service.  Without  exception,  they  were  deeply 
imbued  with  the  principles  and  patriotic  spirit  of  James  G.  Birney. 


380  JAMES  G.   BIRNEY   AND   HIS  TIMES. 

housekeeping  and  removed  to  Eagleswood,  near  Perth 
Amboy,  N.  J.  At  this  place  Mr.  Weld  had  established 
his  celebrated  school,  or  academy,  occupying  for  that 
purpose  one  end  of  an  immense  building.  The  other 
end  and  the  very  long  central  part  was  built  in  "  flats." 
These  were  occupied  by  the  families  of  patrons  of  the 
school.  Mr.  Birney  leased  and  furnished  one  of  the  best 
suites  of  apartments  in  the  building  and  occupied  it  dur 
ing  the  rest  of  his  life.  His  youngest  son  was  a  pupil  in 
the  school.  His  surroundings  in  this  place  freshened  up 
his  life.  The  daily  visits  of  his  friend  Weld  cheered  him. 
He  attended  the  debates  and  literary  exercises  of  the  stu 
dents,  the  Saturday  evening  lectures  delivered  by  distin 
guished  strangers,  and  the  eloquent  Sunday  morning 
religious  addresses  by  Mr.  Weld.  Occasionally  he  went 
to  the  opera  or  visited  other  places  of  public  amusement 
or  listened  to  some  celebrated  preacher  at  New  York.  In 
this  mode  of  living  he  was  comparatively  free  from  the 
curiosity  of  the  vulgar  who  wished  to  know  to  what  de 
gree  his  organs  of  speech  were  affected,  a  curiosity  which 
he  was  not  disposed  to  gratify.  His  attempts  to  articulate 
were  reserved  for  his  family  and  very  intimate  friends,  and 
with  them  were  generally  for  the  purpose  of  discovering 
whether  he  was  improving  or  not. 

Under  his  affliction  his  temper  became  more  genial. 
The  sternness  which  had  been  contracted  in  the  latter 
part  of  his  active  career  disappeared  altogether.  He  took 
pleasure  in  listening  to  the  conversation  of  the  intelligent, 
the  lively  talk  of  young  ladies,  and  the  prattle  of  children. 
With  these  last,  he  was  a  great  favorite.  My  children 
liked  nothing  better  than  to  have  a  romp  with  their 
grandfather.  He  understood  perfectly  the  rare  art  of 
making  himself  an  agreeable  visitor  for  a  long  time,  be 
ing  considerate  of  the  feelings  and  circumstances  of  others 
and  with  sure  intuitions  of  the  right  thing  to  do.  His 


TWELVE   YEARS   AX  INVALID— CONCLUSION.    381 

daughters-in-law  loved  him  as  dearly  as  his  sons  did.  He 
was  never  morose  or  impatient  or  low  spirited ;  nor  did  he 
complain  of  his  affliction.  He  controlled  himself  so  as 
not  to  distress  those  who  loved  him.  The  only  expression 
during  his  long  malady  of  his  desire  to  die  was  made  to 
me  as  I  sat  by  his  bedside,  holding  his  hand  after  one  of 
his  excruciatingly  painful  attacks,  "  I  had  hoped  this 
would  be  the  last." 

His  resignation  was  due  to  his  piety.  The  Bible  was 
his  constant  companion  and  a  part  of  each  day  was  spent 
by  him  in  silent  prayer.  But  God  heard  him.  After 
more  than  twelve  years  of  bodily  and  mental  suffering  and 
anguish,  in  which  he  showed  how  a  sincere  Christian 
should  bear  affliction,  his  spirit  was  released  from  its 
earthly  prison.  On  the  25th  of  November,  j.857,  he  died 
at  Eagleswood,  New  Jersey,  surrounded  by  his  wife,  chil 
dren,  and  friends. 


APPENDIX  A. 

As  an  answer  to  the  claim  that  Mr.  Garrison  was  the  first  to 
reveal  to  Americans  the  nature  of  slavery,  and  that  the  reader 
may  have  something  like  an  adequate  idea  of  the  quantity  and 
comprehensiveness  in  1830  of  the  American  literature  relating  to 
slavery,  I  subjoin  an  incomplete  list  of  publications  then  extant 
on  the  subject.  A  perfect  list  would  probably  comprise  from  ten 
to  twenty  times  as  many.  The  rapidity  with  which  pamphlets 
and  even  books  disappear  is  well  known  to  every  man  who  has 
attempted  to  make  a  collection  on  any  special  subject  ;  they  per 
ish  like  autumn  leaves.  Important  American  works  on  slavery 
published  before  1830,  such  as  those  of  George  Bourne,  John 
Kcnrick,  Jesse  Torrcy,  James  Duncan,  John  Rankin,  and  George 
M.  Stroud,  which  expressed  the  best  anti-slavery  convictions  of 
the  day  and  contributed  greatly  to  purify  public  opinion  and 
sentiment,  have  become  exceedingly  rare.  Many  of  the  works 
published  in  England  circulated  freely  in  this  country.  The 
most  important  ones  were  republished  here — some  in  Philadel 
phia,  others  in  Kentucky,  and  Elizabeth  Heyrick's  in  Baltimore 
and  Philadelphia.  The  following  list,  incomplete  as  it  is,  may 
aid  some  bibliographer  to  make  a  perfect  one.  The  one  given 
in  the  appendix  to  the  "Proceedings  of  the  Third  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society  Decade  Meeting "  contains  twenty-three 
items  only;  it  was  published  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  Gar 
rison. 

Books  and  pamphlets  on  slavery,  published  or  republished  be 
fore  the  year  1831  in  the  United  States.  No  English  works  are 
included  unless  they  were  republished  or  had  large  circulation  in 
this  country.  French  ones  are  omitted. 

Godwyn,  Rev.  Morgan.  "The  Kegoes'  and  Indians'  Advo 
cate,"  treatise,  1G50. 


APPENDIX  A.  383 

Baxter,  Richard.  "Friendly  Advice  to  Planters,"  "  Negroes' 
Complaint,"  etc.,  about  1651. 

Southern.     "Oronooko,"  a  tragedy,  1696. 

Sir  Richard  Steele's  story  of  '  •  Inkle  and  Yarico  "  was  pub 
lished  about  1715. 

Sandiford,  Ralph,  Philadelphia.  "  The  Mystery  of  Iniquity," 
1729. 

Atkins,  Surgeon.  "  Voyage  to  Guinea  and  the  West  Indies," 
1735. 

Whitefield,  George.  "Address  to  the  Inhabitants  of  Mary 
land  and  Virginia,"  1739. 

Hughes,  Rev.  Griffith.  "Natural  History  of  Earbadoes," 
1750. 

Benezet.      "Tracts  on  Slavery,"  1750  to  1774. 

Woolman,  John.  "  Considerations  on  the  keeping  of  Ne 
groes,"  1754  to  1762. 

Jeffery,  Thomas.  "Account  of  a  Part  of  North  America," 
1761. 

Sharp,  Granville.  "Memoirs  and  Representation  of  the  In 
justice  of  Slavery,"  1769. 

Anthony  Benezet's  writings  on  slavery,  with  extracts  from 
the  writings  of  several  noted  authors  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
viz.,  George  Wallace,  Francis  Hutcheson,  James  Foster,  and 
Granville  Sharp,  and  from  an  address  to  the  Assembly  of  Vir 
ginia,  Philadelphia,  1771. 

Lay,  Benjamin.      "Treatise  on  Slave-keeping,"  1773. 

Rush,  Benjamin.  "  Address  to  the  Inhabitants  of  the  British 
Settlements  on  the  Slavery  of  the  Negroes,"  1773. 

Wesley,  John.     "Thoughts  on  Slavery,"  1774. 

Pennsylvania  Abolition  Society.  Act  of  incorporation.  In 
stituted  in  1775  ;  incorporated  in  1789;  1775  and  1789. 

Day,  Thomas.      "  Slavery  of  the  Negroes,"  1776. 

Miller,  Prof.     "Origin  of  Ranks,"  1777. 

"  A  Serious  Address  to  the  Rulers  of  America  on  the  Incon 
sistency  of  their  Conduct  respecting  Slavery,"  etc.,  by  a  farmer, 
London,  1783. 

Woods,  Joseph.  "  Thoughts  on  the  Slavery  of  the  Negroes," 
1784. 

Gregory,  Dr.      "Essays,  Historical  and  Moral,"  1784. 


JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND   HIS  TIMES. 

Ramsay,  James.  "Essay  on  the  Treatment  and  Conversion 
of  the  African  Slaves  in  the  British  Sugar  Colonies,"  1784. 

Clarkson,  Thomas.      "Essay  on  the  Slavery  and  Commerce  of 
the  Human  Species,"  1786. 
^/Jefferson,  Thomas.      "  Notes  on  Virginia,"  1787. 

Cowper,  poet. 

Sharp,  Granville.      "Law  of  Retribution,"  1778. 

Newton.      "On  the  Slave  Trade,"  1788. 

"Constitution  of  a  Society  for  abolishing  the  Slave  Trade," 
Providence,  1789. 

"  Oration  upon  the  Necessity  of  establishing  at  Paris  a  So 
ciety  for  the  Promotion  of  the  Abolition  of  the  Trade  and  Slav 
ery  of  the  Negroes."  By  J.  P.  Brissot  de  Warville,  1789.  Re- 
published  in  Philadelphia  in  1791  (translation). 

"Memorial  Presented  to  Congress  by  the  Different  Societies 
instituted  for  the  Promotion  of  the  Abolition  of  Slavery,  etc.,  in 
the  States  of  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Pennsylvania,  New 
York,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,"  1790  to  1791. 

"Debates  on  the  Slave  Trade,"  1791,  1792. 

Buchanan,  George.   "Oration  on  Slavery,"  1791,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  Jr.  "Injustice  and  Impolicy  of  the 
Slave  Trade,"  1791. 

Rice,  David,  Rev.  "A  Kentucky  Protest  against  Slavery," 
1792.  (Immediate  abolition.) 

"Proceedings  of  Conventions  of  Delegates  from  the  Abolition 
Societies  of  the  United  States,"  1794  to  1828. 

"Memoirs  of  Waimbamma,  an  African  Priest,"  1799. 

Collins.     "Professional  Planter,"  1804. 

"Congressional  Debates  on  the  Slave  Trade,"  18C6  and  1807. 

Rev.  Archibald  Cameron's  "Slavery  justified  by  Scripture" 
("Monitor"),  Lexington,  Ky.,  1806. 

Branagan,  Thomas.  "The  Penitential  Tyrant,  or  Slave- 
Trader  Reformed."  A  pathetic  poem  in  four  cantos.  290  pp. 
New  York,  1807.  (Immediate  abolition.) 

"Select  Speeches"  (including  some  of  Wilberforce,  Fox, 
North,  and  Pitt,  on  slavery),  published  by  N.  Chapman,  M.  D., 
Philadelphia,  1807. 

Clarkson's  "History  of  the  Abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade," 
republished,  2  vols.,  octavo,  pp.  455,  468,  Philadelphia,  1808. 


APPENDIX   A.  385 

Dickson's  "Mitigation  of  Slavery,"  1814. 

Rev.  David  Barrow's  pamphlet  against  slavery  (out  of  print), 
Paris,  Ky.,  1815.  (Immediate  abolition.) 

Pinckard's  "Notes  on  the  West  Indies,"  1815. 

Rev.  George  Bourne  (Va).  "The  Book  and  Slavery  Irrecon 
cilable,"  Philadelphia,  1816.  (Immediate  abolition.)  Also  au 
thor  of  ' '  Picture  of  Slavery  in  America. " 

"Watson.  "Defense  of  Methodist  Missions  in  West  Indies," 
1816. 

Coster  "On  the  Amelioration  of  Slavery,"  1816. 

Kenrick,  John.      "Horrors  of  Slavery,"  Boston,  1816. 

Thomas  Clarkson's  "Essay  on  the  Slavery  and  Commerce  of 
the  Human  Species,  particularly  the  African."  Republished, 
Georgetown,  Ky.,  by  J.  N.  Lyle,  1816. 

Torrey,  Jesse,  physician.  "A  Portraiture  of  Domestic  Slav 
ery  in  the  United  States,  etc.,  including  Memoirs  of  Facts  on  the 
Interior  Traffic  in  Slaves  and  on  Kidnapping,"  Philadelphia, 
1817. 

Thorpe,  Robert,  LL.D.  "  Present  Increase  of  the  Slave 
Trade,"  1818. 

"The  Exclusion  of  Slavery  from  the  Territories  and  new 
States,"  1819. 

"Memorial  to  Congress  on  Restraining  the  Increase  of  Slav 
ery,"  1819. 

"The  Bible  justifies  Slavery."   By  Duff  Green,  St.  Louis,  1819. 

Robert  Walsh's  ' '  Appeal  from  the  Judgments  of  Great  Britain 
respecting  the  United  States,"  etc.  512  pp.  Philadelphia  (pro- 
slavery),  1819. 

' '  Dialogue  on  Slavery. "  By  the  Rev.  James  Gilliland,  Ripley, 
Ohio,  1820.  (Immediate  abolition.) 

Congressional  speeches  of  Rufus  King,  J.  Tallmadge,  Jr., 
and  others  on  the  admission  of  Missouri,  with  numerous  pam 
phlets  on  the  subject  (most  of  these  have  perished),  1818,  1819, 
and  1820. 

Sharp,  Granville.      "Memoirs,"  etc.,  reprint  from  1769,  1820. 

Raymond,  Daniel.  "Political  Economy,"  2  vols.,  octavo, 
Baltimore,  1820  and  1823. 

Learned,    Joseph   D.     "View  of  the   Policy  of  permitting 
Slaves  in  the  States  West  of  the  Mississippi,"  1820. 
18 


386  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Plumer,  M.  C.     "  Speech  on  the  Missouri  Question,"  1820. 

" Achates,"  Charleston,  S.  C.  "Reflections  concerning  Late 
Disturbances  in  Charleston,"  1822. 

Cropper's  "Letters  to  Wilberf orce, "  1822. 

Singleton's  "Report  of  the  State  of  Sierre  Leone,"  1822. 

Rev.  John  Rankin's  "Letters  on  Slavery  in  America."  (Im 
mediate  abolition.)  118pp.,  1823-'24. 

Hodgson.  ' '  Letter  to  Say  on  the  Comparative  Expense  of 
Free  and  Slave  Labor,"  1823. 

"Declaration  of  the  Objects  of  the  Liverpool  Society  for 
abolishing  Slavery,"  1823. 

Wilberf  orce.  "Appeal  to  the  Religion,  Justice,  and  Hu 
manity  of  the  Inhabitants  of  the  British  Empire  in  behalf  of  the 
Negro  Slaves  in  the  West  Indies,"  1823. 

Clarkson,  Thomas.  "Thoughts  on  the  Necessity  of  improv 
ing  the  Condition  of  Slaves  in  the  British  Colonies,"  etc., 
1823. 

Cooper.  "Letter  to  R.  Hibbert,  Jr.,  Exposure  of  False 
hood,"  etc.,  1823. 

Cooper.  "Facts  Illustrative  of  the  Condition  of  the  Negroes 
in  Jamaica,"  1823. 

Cropper,  James.     "  Support  of  Slavery  investigated,"  1823. 

"Impolicy  of  Slavery,"  illustrated,  1823. 

"Pictures  of  Slavery  in  the  West  Indies,  United  States,  and 
especially  in  Jamaica."  Published  by  the  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
1823. 

Gloucester,  Jeremiah.  ' '  Oration  on  the  Abolition  of  the 
Slave  Trade,"  1823. 

Birkbeck,  Morris.  "An  Appeal  to  the  People  of  Illinois  on 
the  Question  of  a  Convention,"  1823. 

"Brief  View  of  the  Nature  and  Effects  of  Negro  Slavery  as  it 
exists  in  the  Colonies  of  Great  Britain."  Committee  of  the 
Methodist  Wesleyan  Conference. 

"First  Report  of  the  Committee  of  the  Society  for  the  Miti 
gation  and  Gradual  Abolition  of  Slavery,"  June  25,  1824  and 
1825. 

Stephen,  James.  "The  Slavery  of  the  British  West  India 
Colonies  delineated,"  1824. 

"East  India  Free  Labor  Sugar,"  1824. 


APPENDIX  A.  38T 

"Information  concerning  the  Present  Condition  of  Slave 
Trade,"  1824. 

"Treatise  on  Slavery."  By  Rev.  James  Duncan,  of  Kentucky, 
Yevay,  Ind.,  1824.  (Immediate  abolition.) 

Remarks  to  Citizens  of  Illinois  on  the  Proposed  Introduction 
of  Slavery,"  1824. 

"An  Impartial  Appeal  to  the  People  of  Illinois  on  the  Injuri 
ous  Effects  of  Slave  Labor,"  1824. 

"  Hayti,  Rural  Code  of,"  1826. 

Heyrick,  Elizabeth.  "Immediate  not  Gradual  Emancipa 
tion,"  London,  1824.  Republished  December  3  and  10,  1825,  in 
Lundy's  "Genius";  first  edition  in  Philadelphia  in  1824,  second 
in  1836.  (See  preface  to  latter.)  "Thoughts  on  the  Extinction 
of  Colonial  Slavery."  By  Miss  Heyrick. 

Quoted  from  by  Miss  Chandler  and  indorsed  in  "Genius"  of 
January  1,  1830. 

Clarkson,  Thomas.  The  argument  "That  the  Colonial  Slaves 
are  better  off  than  the  British  Peasantry,"  1825. 

"  Brief  View  of  the  Nature  and  Effects  of  Slavery," 
1825. 

"Impolicy  of  Slavery  illustrated,"  1825. 

"Negroes'  Memorial  or  Abolitionist's  Catechism,"  London, 
1825. 

Lundy,  Benjamin.  "Life  of  Elisha  Tyson,"  a  Maryland  abo 
litionist,  1825. 

"Picture  of  Slavery,  drawn  by  the  Colonists  themselves," 
1825. 

Stroud,  George  M. ,  Philadelphia.  ' '  Sketch  of  the  Laws  re 
lating  to  Slavery  in  the  Several  States  of  the  United  States  of 
America,"  1827. 

* '  Minutes  of  the  Twentieth  Session  of  the  American  Conven 
tion  for  promoting  the  Abolition  of  Slavery,"  held  in  Philadel 
phia,  October  2,  1827. 

"Remarks  on  Slavery  in  the  United  States,"  1827. 

Dyer  Burgess's  "Pamphlet  against  Slavery,"  Ripley,  Ohio, 
1827.  (Immediate  abolition.) 

Wilson's  "Thoughts  on  Slavery,"  1827. 

"Wilberforce's  "Appeal." 

Winn  on  "Emancipation,"  1827. 


388  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

"  Sketches  and  Anecdotes  of  Persons  of  Color."    By  A.  Mott, 
York,  England,  1828. 

' '  Scripture  Evidence  of  the  Sinfulness  of  Injustice  and  Op- 
Wession,"  London,  1828. 
\  <•' Anti- Slavery  Petitions,"  1828. 

>^  "Anti-Slavery  Monthly  Reporter"  from  1825  to   1827  and 
1829. 

"  Investigator, "  Providence,  October  11,  1827. 

1  'Philanthropist  and  Investigator,"   Boston,    January   10  to 
August  26,  1829. 

"Investigator  and  Genius  of  Temperance,"  October  28,  De 
cember  30,  1829. 

"Treatise  on  the  Patriarchal  System  of  Slavery,"  1829. 

Walker.     "Appeal,"  Boston,  1829. 

Walsh,  Rev.  Dr.      "Notes  on  the  Brazils,"  1830. 

Godwin.      "Lectures  on  Slavery,"  1830. 

Hicks,  Elias.      "Remarks  on  Character  of,"  1830. 

Hodgson  on  "Free  and  Slave  Labor,"  1830. 

New  York.     "Selections  from  the  Revised  Statutes  of  Laws 
relative  to  Slaves  and  Kidnapping,"  1830. 

"Negro  Slavery  Tracts,"  Nos.  1  to  17,  1830. 

"Address  to  the  Churches,"  by  the  Chillicothe  (Ohio)  Presby 
tery,  excluding  slaveholders  from  the  communion,  1830. 


APPENDIX  B. 

BENJAMIN  LUNDY. 

BENJAMIN  LUNDY  (1789-1839),  editor  and  publisher  of  the 
"Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation,"  was  the  most  conspicuous 
abolitionist  in  Maryland  during  the  six  years  beginning  with  Oc 
tober,  1824.  His  anti-slavery  work  began  in  1815  in  Ohio,  and 
ended  in  1839  in  Illinois,  having  been  prosecuted  in  the  mean 
time  in  Tennessee,  Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania.  His  prominent 
anti-slavery  contemporaries  prior  to  1830  were  Dr.  Doak,  Charles 
Osborn,  John  Rankin,  and  Jesse  Lockhart,  of  Tennessee ;  the  Ken 
tucky  Presbyterians  David  Rice,  James  Duncan,  and  John  Fin- 
ley  Crowe  ;  the  Kentucky  Baptists,  "Friends  of  Humanity," 
David  Barrow,  Carter  Torrant,  John  Sutton,  Donald  Holmes, 
Jacob  Gregg,  and  George  Smith;  William  Swaim  and  R.  Men- 
denhall,  of  North  Carolina;  James  Gilliland,  of  South  Carolina; 
Edward  Coles  and  George  Bourne,  of  Virginia  ;  Elisha  Tyson, 
Daniel  Raymond,  John  Needles,  and  Edward  Needles,  of  Balti 
more  ;  the  ministers  of  the  seventeen  "emancipating  Baptist 
churches"  of  Illinois  and  of  the  Methodist  Reformed  Church  ; 
with  Rufus  King,  J.  Tallmadge,  Jr.,  and  the  other  opponents  of 
the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave  State.  Lundy's  place  in 
abolition  history  is  unlike  that  of  any  other  man.  To  understand 
it  his  career  must  be  studied. 

He  was  born  and  reared  a  Quaker  in  New  Jersey.  His  edu 
cation  was  of  the  narrowest — a  little  reading  and  ciphering  and- 
a  great  deal  of  hard  work.  Having  injured  his  health  and  per 
manently  impaired  his  hearing  by  trying  to  do  as  much  work  as 
any  man  on  his  father's  farm,  he  left  home  in  1808.  At  Wheel 
ing,  Va.,  he  remained  four  years,  working  at  the  saddler's  trade 
and  reading  diligently.  Owing  to  the  suppression  of  the  African 


390  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

slave  trade  the  Southern  demand  for  Virginia  slaves  was  becom 
ing  active,  and  Lundy  while  apprentice  and  journeyman  saw 
many  chained  conies  of  slaves  on  their  way  to  the  Southern  mar 
ket.  His  pity  for  them  made  him  an  abolitionist.  This  was 
about  1810.  Having  married  and  established  himself  in  his  trade 
at  St.  Clairsville,  Ohio,  he  called  a  few  friends  together  at  his 
house,  in  1815,  and  organized  for  anti-slavery  purposes  "The 
Union  Humane  Society."  It  is  significant  of  the  liberal  public 
opinion  of  that  day  that  in  a  few  months  the  number  of  members 
had  increased  to  "  nearly  five  hundred,"  among  whom  were 
"  most  of  the  influential  preachers  and  lawyers."  *  Under  date  of 
January  4,  1816,  he  published  an  address  to  the  philanthropists  of 
the  United  States,  recommending  the  general  formation  of  anti- 
slavery  societies  under  a  common  title  and  constitution,  with  co 
operation  and,  for  important  business,  a  general  convention.  At 
the  close  he  stated  that  he  "had  had  the  subject  long  in  contem 
plation,  and  that  he  had  now  taken  it  up  fully  determined  never  to 
lay  it  down  while  he  breathed  or  until  the  end  should  be  ob 
tained."! 

In  1817  he  began  his  work  as  editor.  On  the  12th  of  Septem 
ber  in  that  year,  Charles  Osborn,  the  Quaker  preacher  from  Ten 
nessee,  issued  at  Mount  Pleasant,  Chio,  the  first  number  of  the 
"  Philanthropist,"  a  weekly  paper  of  a  religious  tone  and  intended 
to  aid  in  the  warfare  then  waged  by  reformers  generally  against 
the  three  great  national  evils — war,  slavery,  and  intemperance. 
Two  years  before  that  date,  Charles  Osborn,  John  Underbill, 
Jesse  Willis,  John  Canaday,  John  Swain,  Elibu  Swain,  David 
Maulsby,  and  Thomas  Morgan  had  formed  the  Tennessee  Manu 
mission  Society.  Either  because  of  a  difference  of  opinion  on 
the  question  between  immcdiatism  and  gradualism  or  to  leave  all 
members  at  liberty  as  to  the  manner  of  emancipation,  the  'Consti 
tution  was  silent  on  the  subject.  The  three  first  named,  how 
ever,  were  in  favor  of  immediate,  uncompensated  emancipation 
on  the  soil.  Osborn  removed  to  Ohio  in  1816,  and  Underbill 
and  Willis  to  Indiana  at  a  later  day.  Osborn  was  a  preacher,  his 
editing  taking  a  minor  place  in  his  life.  In  his  first  number  he 
hopefully  declares  in  regard  to  slavery  that  the  time  "  is  fast  ap- 


*  Earle's  "  Life  of  Lundy,"  p.  16.  f  Ibid.,  p.  17. 


APPENDIX  B.  391 

preaching  when  the  United  States  shall  no  longer  be  stained  with 
this  foul  pollution."  In  his  sixth  he  thus  speaks  of  the  Coloniza 
tion  Society: 

"The  editor  has  great  doubts  of  the  justice  of  the  plan  pro 
posed.  It  appears  to  him  calculated  to  rivet  closer  the  chains 
that  already  gall  the  sons  of  Africa  and  to  insure  to  the  miserable 
objects  of  American  cruelty  a  perpetuity  of  bondage." 

Osborn  found  in  Lundy  a  kindred  spirit  and  trustworthy 
man,  and  encouraged  him  to  send  to  the  paper  selected  and 
original  articles  on  slavery.  In  1818  he  proposed  a  partnership 
in  the  printing  business.  Lundy  accepted,  asking  time  to  get 
rid  of  his  stock  in  trade.  To  effect  this  he  made  two  trips  to 
St.  Louis,  reaching  that  city  on  the  second  trip  late  in  the  fall  of 
1819,  when  the  Missouri  controversy  was  at  its  height.  He  en 
gaged  in  it  with  all  his  energy,  writing  numerous  articles  on  the 
evils  of  slavery'  for  the  newspapers  of  Missouri  and  Illinois.  He 
remained  at  St.  Louis  until  about  the  1st  of  December,  1820,  at 
which  time,  having  lost  nearly  all  his  property  and  exhausted 
the  patience  of  Charles  Osborn,  who  sold  his  paper  before  Lundy's 
return,  he  set  out  on  foot  to  return  home.  On  the  road  he  heard 
of  the  death  (December  4,  1820)  of  Elihu  Embree,  the  editor  of 
the  "Emancipator,"  of  Jonesborough,  East  Tennessee.  Osborn's 
successor  did  not  come  up  to  Lundy's  standard  of  anti-slavery 
doctrine,  and  he  decided  to  establish  a  monthly  periodical  at 
Mount  Pleasant,  Ohio,  under  the  title  of  "The  Genius  of  Uni 
versal  Emancipation,"  a  sounding  name  suggested  by  a  passage 
in  one  of  Curran's  speeches.  The  first  number  was  issued  in 
January,  1821.  "In  four  months,"  he  says,  "my  subscription 
list  had  become  quite  large."  At  that  time  he  was  well  aware 
that  the  best  vantage  ground  for  attacking  slavery  was  the  State 
of  Maryland.  In  his  "proposals,"  published  in  the  number  for 
July  29,  1824,  of  "The  American  Economist  and  East  Tennessee 
Statesman,"  he  says  : 

' '  I  had  fully  determined  on  removing  to  Baltimore  as  soon 
as  necessary  arrangements  could  be  made.  .  .  .  But  finding  that 
the  Manumission  Society  of  Tennessee  had  procured  a  press  for 
the  purpose  of  exposing  the  pernicious  effects  of  slavery  and  dis 
seminating  the  principles  of  universal  emancipation,  and  that 
they  were  likely  to  fail  in  the  attainment  of  their  object  for  the 


392  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

want  of  assistance  in  conducting  their  printing  establishment,  I 
concluded  that,  perhaps,  it  was  a  duty  incumbent  on  me  to  ren 
der  them  my  feeble  aid  in  so  laudable  an  undertaking,  especially 
as  I  had  received  an  invitation  from  them  to  that  purport." 

Lundy  could  not  do  as  he  would.  He  had  no  money  and 
owned  neither  press  nor  types  ;  his  monthly  edition  was  printed 
ten  miles  off  and  he  lugged  it  home  on  his  back.  He  went, 
September,  1821,  to  the  press  and  types  in  East  Tennessee,  and 
there  he  learned  the  practical  part  of  a  printer's  business  and  es 
tablished  at  Greenville  a  weekly  local  and  a  monthly  agricult 
ural  paper  besides  the  "Genius."  In  the  winter  of  1823-'24  he 
attended  the  biennial  convention  of  the  American  Abolition  So 
ciety  at  Philadelphia,  and  became  acquainted  with  some  of  the 
Eastern  abolitionists.  Encouraged  by  the  increasing  circulation 
of  his  paper  and  disgusted  with  the  irregularities  of  mail  trans 
portation*  in  the  South,  he  resolved  to  carry  out  his  original 
design  of  publishing  in  Baltimore.  Having  issued  at  Greenville 
his  number  for  August,  1824,  he  started  eastward  on  foot.  En 
route  he  delivered  numerous  anti-slavery  lectures  in  North  Caro 
lina  and  Virginia,  forming  several  abolition  societies.  One  of 
the  places  in  which  he  spoke  was  Raleigh.  He  says  : 

"Before  I  left  the  State  (North  Carolina)  there  were  some 
twelve  or  fourteen  anti-slavery  societies  organized." 

Several  others  were  formed  in  the  middle  section  of  Virginia. 
The  public  impression  that,  prior  to  Jackson's  first  term,  there 
was  in  the  South  no  freedom  of  speech  on  slavery  is  contradicted 
by  Lundy  in  these  words  : 

"I  afterward,  during  that  visit  to  North  Carolina,  held  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  anti-slavery  meetings  at  different  places.  My 
discourses  were  similar  to  all  that  I  have  since  delivered  in  other 
parts  of  the  United  States,  and  as  ultra-orthodox  in  anti-slavery 
sentiment  as  any  of  modern  times."  t 

The  establishment  of  the  "Genius"  caused  no  excitement  in 
Baltimore.  The  abolitionists  received  Lundy  '"  civilly  enough.'1  J 
His  personal  presence  was  not  imposing.  He  was  of  medium 
height,  plain  in  dress,  hard  of  hearing,  and  not  fluent  in  speech. 

*  Sec  the  "  proposals  "  for  publishing  the  "  Genius  "  in  Baltimore, 
f  "  Life,"  p.  22.  \  Ibid.,  p.  23. 


APPENDIX  B.  393 

It  took  time  for  the  public  to  appreciate  the  scrupulous  truth 
fulness,  good  judgment,  firmness,  industry,  and  sledge-hammer 
style  of  the  unpretending  Quaker.  His  initial  article  painted  in 
lively  colors  the  impending  dangers  from  the  ' '  grievous  curse  " 
of  slavery,  adding  : 

"  Yea,  all  Nature  cries  aloud  that  something  must  "be  done  to 
appease  the  kindling  wrath  of  outraged  humanity  and  violated 
justice  ere  the  fate  of  ancient  Egypt  or  of  modern  St.  Domingo 
shall  be  ours." 

He  pledged  himself  to  expose  the  vile  management  of  those 
who  endeavor  "  to  uphold  and  perpetuate  the  horrors  of  the  sys 
tem  "  that  men  might  see  "  what  manner  of  Christians  or  repub 
licans  are  those  who  cherish  the  infamous  practice  of  enslaving 
their  fellow-mortals."  He  declared  that  nothing  less  was  con 
templated  than  the  " complete  and  final  extinguishment"  of 
slavery. 

The  first  number  was  an  excellent  paper.  It  contained  the 
editor's  address,  an  article  on  Hayti,  "Backing  out,"  triumph  of 
principle  in  Illinois,  accounts  of  the  formation  of  six  new  eman 
cipation  societies,  notices  of  General  Lafayette,  slavery  in  Brazil, 
Rev.  James  Duncan's  new  work  on  slavery,  Manumission  Society 
of  North  Carolina,  letter  from  Illinois,  revivals  in  North  Carolina, 
the  constitutions  of  six  abolition  societies,  "Mr.  Adams  and 
Slave-holding,"  the  black  list,  on  kidnapping,  etc.,  Hayti  circu 
lar,  British  anti-slavery  meeting  in  London,  poetry  on  Hayti  and 
Africa,  and  notices  to  patrons  and  correspondents. 

To  get  out  this  number  required  all  Lundy's  pluck  and  spirit 
of  self-sacrifice.  He  had  neither  money  nor  type  nor  press.  He 
worked  as  journeyman  for  the  printer  in  whose  office  the  "Gen 
ius  "  was  set  up  and  struck  off  ;  lived  cheaply,  paid  as  he  went, 
and  kept  out  of  debt — a  rule  which  he  always  conscientiously 
observed.  The  paper  made  a  good  impression  ;  subscriptions 
came  in  rapidly ;  the  editor  was  a  good  canvasser ;  the  funds  for 
the  publication  of  the  following  six  numbers  were  easily  ob 
tained.  Prospects  were  so  bright  that  in  the  March  number 
proposals  were  published  for  a  weekly  edition  of  the  paper. 
The  monthly  was  a  sixteen  page  octavo,  of  which  the  printed 
matter  on  each  page  was  about  4^  by  7£  inches.  The  weekly 
was  to  be  a  sixteen  page  quarto,  the  size  of  the  printed  page  to 


394  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AXD  HIS  TIMES. 

be  6|  by  9|  inches.  The  first  and  specimen  number  of  the  week 
ly  was  issued  July  4,  1825,  and  its  regular  publication  began 
September  5,  1825,  and  was  continued  until  January  3,  1829, 
having  been  enlarged  July  4,  1827,  to  8£  by  11  inches  printed 
page.  The  monthly  paper  was  not  again  published  after  Sep 
tember,  1825,  until  April,  1830.  The  pecuniary  success  of  the 
paper  was  large  enough  in  the  first  three  years  to  encourage 
Lundy  greatly.  He  brought  his  family  from  Tennessee  and  went 
to  housekeeping,  rented  a  good  printing-office,  furnished  it  with 
cases,  type,  and  press.  He  employed  several  journeymen  printers, 
did  a  fair  job  business,  and  published  a  book  (the  ' '  Life  of  Ty 
son  ")  and  sundry  pamphlets.  His  income  was  from  subscrip 
tions  and  job-work.  There  is  no  trace  of  his  having  received 
donations  or  pecuniary  aid  of  any  kind.  His  prosperity  was 
solid,  being  based  upon  a  public  sentiment  represented  in  1826 
by  974  abolition  votes  at  the  Baltimore  polls.  It  appears  to 
have  steadily  increased  in  1825,  1826,  and  in  1827,  until  the  Oc 
tober  election,  which  defeated  the  Adams  candidates  and  placed 
Jackson  Democrats  in  the  Legislature. 

From  that  time  the  "Genius"  was  doomed.  The  signs  of 
the  times  indicated  the  overthrow  of  Adams,  a  non- slave-holder, 
under  whom  free  discussion  had  been  the  rule,  and  the  incoming 
of  Jackson,  the  slave-holder,  with  the  ascendency  of  the  slave 
power.  Time-servers  and  trucklers  were  preparing  to  change 
parties.  Fence  men  descended  on  the  Southern  side.  Timid 
men  did  not  like  to  have  it  known  that  they  took  Lundy's  paper, 
and  business  men  who  were  abolitionists  thought  it  prudent  to 
be  so  secretly.  The  subscription  list  fell  off  and  old  subscribers 
did  not  pay  up. 

In  March,  1828,  Southern  patronage  had  fallen  off  to  such  an 
extent  that  it  was  necessary  to  do  what  Lundy  had  never  before 
done— appeal  to  the  North.  In  March,  1828,  he  visited  Phila 
delphia,  New  York,  Providence,  and  Boston,  seeing  Arthur 
Tappan,  William  Goodell,  and  other  well-known  friends  of  the 
slave.  March  17th  he  explained  his  views  to  eight  Boston  cler 
gymen.  They  "cordially  approved,"  and  Mr.  Garrison,  "who 
sat  in  the  room,  also  expressed  his  approbation  of  my  doctrines." 
( ' '  Life, "  page  25,  and  ' '  Life  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison, "  page  93.) 
Having  been  successful  in  getting  subscriptions  he  returned  home. 


APPENDIX  B.  395 

In  a  few  weeks  he  made  a  second  *  and  last  visit  to  the  North. 
His  journal,  the  substance  of  which  is  published  in  his  "Life" 
by  Earle  (pages  26,  27,  and  28)  shows  that  he  started  May  1st 
and  returned  to  Baltimore  October  25th,  having  held  forty-three 
public  meetings,  going  as  far  as  ' '  New  Hampshire,  Maine,  and 
New  York,"  and  having  " considerably  increased  his  subscrip 
tion  list." 

The  relief  from  Northern  subscriptions  was  but  temporary. 
The  heavy  ground  swell  of  the  slave-power  democracy  in  1827 
had  become  a  tidal  wave  in  1828,  and  the  little  bark,  the  "Gen 
ius,"  already  loosed  from  its  moorings,  was  driven  high  and 
dry  on  shore,  a  hopeless  wreck.  The  election  of  Jackson,  a 
slave-holder  and  cotton-planter,  over  Adams  by  a  vote  of  178  to 
83  struck  the  chill  of  the  grave  into  Maryland  abolitionism. 
Lundy  found  himself  on  the  road  to  bankruptcy  and  suspension. 
He  was  obliged  to  mortgage  his  press  and  type  and  to  let  the 
press  and  part  of  the  type  go  to  his  creditors. 

*  It  was  on  this  "  second  "  visit  that  Mr.  Lundy  says  he  invited  Mr. 
Garrison  to  be  his  assistant  editor,  which  invitation  was  declined.  (See 
Earle,  p.  28.)  Writing  from  memory,  he  errs  in  fixing  the  date  of  the 
visit  in  "  November  "  and  saying  that  Mr.  Garrison  was  then  "  conduct 
ing  a  paper  in  Vermont  from  which  he  could  not  then  disengage  him 
self."  The  second  visit  is  shown  by  his  published  diary  (Earle,  p.  26)  to 
have  continued  until  the  25th  of  October.  As  Lundy's  public  meetings 
in  Boston  were  held  on  the  7th  and  llth  of  August  and  were  attended  by 
Mr.  Garrison,  the  two  meeting  doubtless  every  day,  and  as  Mr.  Lundy 
needed  an  assistant  at  that  time,  an  offer  was  quite  in  the  natural  order 
of  things,  as  was  also  the  refusal  by  Mr.  Garrison  because  of  his  engage 
ment  to  go  to  Bennington.  (Compare  Earle  and  Garrison's  "  Life  "  for 
the  dates.) 

The  story  so  often  repeated  by  Mr.  Garrison  and  his  friends  of  Lundy's 
traveling  afoot,  staff  in  hand  and  knapsack  on  back,  to  Bennington,  Vt., 
to  invite  Mr.  Garrison  to  join  him,  is  romantic  and  sensational,  but  it  has 
no  foundation  in  fact.  It  was  not  told  during  his  life  and  his  relatives  re 
ject  it.  He  was  never  in  Bennington.  That  city  was  six  hundred  miles 
from  Baltimore  by  the  nearest  roads,  and  forty  days  of  foot  travel  would 
not  have  been  undertaken  by  Lundy  to  accomplish  what  he  could  have 
done  as  well  by  letter.  The  foot-trip  was  never  mentioned  in  either  of  the 
papers  edited  by  the  parties  or  by  Mr.  Garrison  until  after  Lundv's  death. 


396  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

The  last  number  of  the  "Genius,"  before  its  suspension,  was 
issued  January  3,  1829.  In  it  he  shows  his  indomitable  pluck 
by  declaring  his  intention  to  resume  its  publication  at  a  future 
day,  and  that  "it  shall  never  be  abandoned  while  the  labor  of 
his  own  hands  will  support  life  and  produce  a  revenue  sufficient 
to  print  and  publish  one  sheet  per  annum." 

Such  a  cry  of  desperate  failure  was  not  of  a  nature  to  bring 
in  subscriptions.  The  next  eight  months  were  spent  in  prepara 
tions  to  resume,  with  the  exception  of  the  time  taken  for  a  trip  to 
Hayti.  He  renewed,  doubtless  by  letter,  his  invitation  to  Mr. 
Garrison  to  join  him,  and  gained  his  promise  to  do  so.  By  dili 
gent  canvassing  he  managed  to  get  a  few  new  subscribers  and 
collect  some  arrears  of  old  subscriptions,  so  that  he  was  ready  to 
begin  again  on  the  5th  of  September.  It  was,  however,  on  a 
reduced  scale.  Having  no  printing-office,  he  had  the  printing 
done  by  contract  in  the  office  of  Lucas  &  Deaver,  who  were 
abolitionists.  By  the  use  of  larger  type  he  cut  down  the  cost  of 
composition.  By  adding  the  space  of  fourteen  lines  to  the  length 
of  the  column  he  gave  the  paper  a  better  form,  though  it  did 
not  contain  as  much  printed  matter  as  before  the  suspension. 
The  old  subscription  price  was  retained. 

The  Baltimore  public  did  not  respond  to  Lundy's  appeal. 
The  wind  was  raw  and  chilly.  The  shadow  of  the  incoming 
slave-holding  President  darkened  the  sky.  Money  was  scarce, 
and  in  order  to  live  Lundy  was  forced  to  sell  the  remains  of  his 
former  office.  In  the  number  of  January  22d  the  assistant  editor 
wrote  : 

"  The  voluntary  remittances  of  our  subscribers  for  more  than 
four  months  do  not  exceed  the  sum  of  fifty  dollars." 

As  the  terms  were  "three  dollars  per  annum,  payable  in  ad 
vance,"  the  attempt  to  resuscitate  the  weekly*  "Genius "was 

*  In  a  speech  at  the  third  decade  meeting  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  Mr.  Garrison,  speaking  of  editing  the  "National  Philan 
thropist  "  at  Boston,  in  1827,  says: 

"  Among  my  exchange  papers  I  received  a  little,  dingy  monthly  peri 
odical  called  the  '  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation,'  "  etc. 

And  again,  speaking  of  Lundy's  invitation  to  join  him  in  editing  "the 
little,  dingy  monthly,"  he  says  : 

"  The  proposition  upon  his  part  was  that  we  should  convert  the  little 


APPENDIX  B.  397 

evidently  a  disastrous  failure  from  the  very  first.  It  was  aban 
doned  after  a  trial  of  six  months.  The  octavo  monthly  was  re 
sumed  by  Lundy  alone  in  April,  1830. 

It  was  published  in  Baltimore  until  the  end  of  that  year,  then 
nominally  for  a  few  months  and  really  after  that  time  at  Wash 
ington  city  until  October,  1833,  when  its  further  publication 
there  was  to  be  effected  only  at  the  daily  risk  of  life,  and  it  was 
removed  to  Philadelphia. 

The  historical  value  of  Lundy's  paper  for  the  period  begin 
ning  with  1821  and  ending  with  1830  can  hardly  be  overesti 
mated.  It  is  the  repository  of  all  plans  for  the  abolition  of  slav 
ery,  of  all  laws,  opinions,  arguments,  essays,  speeches,  and  views, 
statistics,  constitutions  of  societies,  etc.,  manumissions,  congres 
sional  proceedings,  notices  of  books  and  pamphlets,  colonization 
efforts,  political  movements,  in  short,  of  everything  relating  to 
slavery.  To  such  a  writer  as  Von  Hoist  it  would  be  a  rich  mine 
of  suggestive  information. 

As  a  newspaper  it  is  better  than  any  reform  journal  of  the 
same  period.  The  "Harbinger  of  Peace  "  compared  with  it  is  a 
rush-light  to  the  sun.  It  is  interesting.  The  style  of  the  editor 
improves  from  year  to  year.  So  does  his  taste  in  making  selec 
tions.  The  reader  becomes  insensibly  absorbed  in  gazing  upon 
the  life-like  panorama  presented  to  him  of  the  doings  of  a  former 

monthly  into  a  large  and  handsome  weekly  paper.  (See  "  Third  Decade 
Proceedings,"  p.  120.) 

This  authority  is  followed  by  Oliver  Johnson  and  the  sons  of  Mr.  Gar 
rison  ("Life"  of  W.  L.  G.,  p.  120).  It  is  incorrect  in  every  particular. 
At  the  time  spoken  of  (1827  and  1828)  there  was  no  monthly  in  ex 
istence,  and  had  not  been  since  September,  1825,  and  the  weekly, 
though  the  columns  were  a  little  longer,  contained  no  more  matter  and 
was  not  "  handsome."  /  write  icith  the  files  of  the  "  Genius  "  on  the  table 
before  me. 

In  the  same  speech  Mr.  Garrison  claims  that  he  ruined  Lundy's  paper 
by  advocating  immediate  emancipation.  As  Miss  Heyrick's  pamphlet 
had  been  published  in  the  "  Genius  "  in  December,  1825,  and  the  doctrine 
constantly  presented  in  the  paper  from  about  that  time,  and  as  Miss 
Chandler  had  devoted  mote  space  to  it  than  Mr.  Garrison,  his  conscience 
might  well  have  been  easy  on  that  score.  Mr.  Lundy  never  attributed 
his  failure  to  Mr.  Garrison. 


398  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

generation,  and  when  he  at  last  lays  aside  the  paper  it  is  with 
genuine  respect  for  the  noble  sincerity,  unselfishness,  and  sure 
judgment  of  Benjamin  Lundy.     His  paper  bears  no  trace  of  per 
sonal  quarrels,  of  envy  or  jealousy  of  co-workers. 
"He  did  not  find  his  sleep  less  sweet 
For  music  in  some  neighboring  street, 
Nor  rustling  hear  in  every  breeze 
The  laurels  of  Miltiades." 

This  was  one  of  the  causes  of  his  success.  His  single  purpose 
made  him  see  clearly.  In  Osborn's  "Philanthropist"  (1817)  he 
took  ground  against  colonization,  December  20,  1825,  he  says 
of  the  Colonization  Society  : 

"  Its  direct  effect,  even  to  remove  the  nominally  free  blacks, 
is  next  to  nothing  ;  ...  as  a  means  to  do  away  the  system  of 
slavery,  ...  it  furnishes  not  the  least  hope." 

The  same  year  (vol.  v,  No.  5)  he  denounces  it  as  aiming  at 
the  " expatriation  of  the  free  people  of  color"  and  as  "inade 
quate  to  the  object  I  have  ever  kept  in  view  and  the  attainment 
of  which  is  the  end  and  aim  of  all  my  exertions,  viz.,  the  total 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States." 

In  this  opinion  he  never  wavered.  His  soundness  on  the 
doctrine  of  immediate  emancipation  has  been  slurred  by  Mr. 
Garrison  and  questioned  on  the  same  authority  since  his  death  ; 
but  a  few  remarks  on  this  subject  may  aid  to  a  more  just  con 
clusion. 

The  doctrine  was  not  new  to  him.     Milton  had  asserted  it  : 

"But  man  over  man 

He  made  not  lord  ;  such  title  to  himself  reserving, 
Human  left  from  human  free." 

That  "slavery  is  a  sin,"  imposed,  in  theology,  the  duty  of 
immediate  abandonment.  Wesley  had  said,  ll  Instantly,  at  any 
price,  were  it  the  half  of  your  goods,  deliver  thyself  from  blood 
guiltiness." 

In  1789  Bishop  Burgess  had  advocated  immediate  abolition 
and  denounced  those  who  wished  to  "modify"  and  "amelio 
rate  "  slavery.  (See  "  Anti- Slavery  Monthly  Reporter,"  1829.) 

In  1792  David  Rice  had  delivered  an  address  to  the  Kentucky 
Convention,  urging  it  "to  resolve  unconditionally  to  put  an  end 
to  slavery  in  this  State." 


APPENDIX  B.  399 

To  his  anti-slavery  poem,  "The  Penitential  Tyrant,"  pub 
lished  in  New  York  in  1807,  Branagan  had  added  a  note  (page 
280): 

' '  I  deny  that,  in  the  sight  of  God,  any  human  being  can  be 
the  property  of  another." 

In  1816,  Rev.  George  Bourne  (Virginia),  in  "  The  Book  and 
Slavery  Irreconcilable,"  had  said  : 

"  The  system  is  so  entirely  corrupt  that  it  admits  of  no  cure 
but  by  a  total  and  immediate  abolition.'1'1 

From  about  1824  immediatism  was  accepted  by  the  majority 
of  English  abolitionists.  In  1824,  Rev.  James  Duncan  (Ken 
tucky),  in  his  "  Treatise  on  Slavery,"  showed  the  fallacy  of  grad 
ualism  and  advocated  immediate  abolition  on  the  soil  without 
compensation  to  the  master.  (See  G.,  i,  p.  144.) 

In  the  same  year,  Rev.  John  Rankin  (Tennessee,  Kentucky, 
and  Ohio),  in  his  "Letters  on  Slavery,"  had  argued  that  "less 
inconvenience  and  danger  would  attend  their  liberation  at  the 
present  than  at  any  future  time  "  (page  25). 

The  same  doctrine  had  been  preached  in  Ohio  many  years  by 
the  Revs.  James  Gilliland,  Jesse  Lockhart,  J.  Dunlavy,  John 
Rankin,  the  two  Dickeys,  and  by  Charles  Osborn.  It  was, 
therefore,  a  familiar  one  to  Lundy  ;  but  his  intention  was  to  ef 
fect  practical  abolition  through  manumission  by  masters  and 
through  legislation  by  slave-holding  States,  compelling  masters 
to  emancipate,  and  he  went  into  those  States  to  accomplish  his 
object.  His  appeal  to  masters  was  always,  Manumit  at  once,  for 
slave-holding  is  a  sin.  His  appeal  for  compulsory  statutes  was, 
Fix  a  time  now.  He  recognized  the  fact  that  the  States  already 
free  had  adopted  the  gradual  plan,  and  that  it  would  be  imprac 
ticable  to  obtain  from  any  State  unconditional  and  instantaneous 
emancipation  on  the  soil.  He  expressed  this  well  in  his  "pro 
posals  "  for  issuing  his  paper  at  Baltimore.  These  appeared  in 
his  Greenville  weekly  local  paper  of  July  29,  1824.  In  them  he 
declares  himself  in  favor  of  means  whereby  slavery  ' '  may  be 
completely  annihilated,"  and  adds,  "The  editor  is  well  aware 
that  this  must  be  effected  gradually.'''' 

In  this  he  refers  rather  to  what  will  be  than  to  what  ought  to 
be  ;  to  what  can  be  done  rather  than  to  what  is  lest  to  be  done. 
In  all  his  writings,  it  is  believed,  he  never  pointed  out  any  bad 


400  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

results  likely  to  flow  from  unconditional  emancipation  by  law, 
but  thought  such  a  proposition  to  the  Southern  people  was  chi 
merical.  As  time  wore  on,  however,  he  modified  his  views  on  this 
point.  In  the  "Genius"  for  December  3  and  10,  1825,  he  re- 
published  the  whole  of  Elizabeth  Heyrick's  pamphlet,  "Immedi 
ate,  not  Gradual  Emancipation,"  and  about  the  same  time  he 
republished  Rev.  James  Duncan's  book  and  aided  actively  in 
circulating  it.  In  1827  he  proposed  to  issue  in  book-form  a  re 
print  of  Miss  Heyrick's  second  book,  "The  Prompt  Extinction," 
etc.  (See  "Genius"  of  September  11,  1827.)  In  the  later  pro 
spectuses  of  his  paper  (see  those  of  September  2,  1826,  and  June 
16,  1827)  he  omits  all  mention  of  gradualism.  In  the  number  of 
August  5,  1826,  he  publishes  an  article  from  a  Presbyterian 
preacher  advocating  immediate  abolition.  The  following  lines 
show  its  tenor  : 

"What  has  God  told  you  about  crime  or  sin?  To  desist 
from  it  or  to  persevere  ?  To  desist,  when  ?  Now  !  now  !  .  .  . 
We  are  required  to  do  it  immediately." 

In  August  and  September,  1826,  he  copies  six  radical  articles 
from  the  (New  York)  "Recorder  and  Telegraph."  They  contain 
such  passages  as  these :  "The  point  to  be  aimed  at  is  the  entire, 
speedy  abolition  of  slavery,  for  whether  we  choose  it  or  not  the 
thing  will  be  done.  .  .  .  Emancipation  must  take  place  on  the 
spot  where  slavery  exists.  .  .  .  The  slave  has  a  right  to  immedi 
ate  liberty  paramount  to  every  claim  of  his  master." 

November  11,  1826,  a  North  Carolina  correspondent  urges  as 
"the  next  step  "  to  call  on  the  legislatures  "  to  make  an  immedi 
ate,  unconditional,  and  indiscriminate  destruction  of  the  slave 
market." 

Miss  Elizabeth  M.  Chandler,  who  in  1825  had  written  "  The 
Slave  Ship,"  a  prize  poem,  and,  after  writing  literary  pieces  for 
the  "  Genius  "  in  1826,  had  become,  early  in  1827,  a  frequent  con 
tributor  to  it  of  articles  on  slavery,  showing  the  tender  heart  of 
woman  and  rare  poetical  genius,  had  never  penned  a  line  in  favor 
of  gradualism.  She  was  always  in  favor  of  immediate  abolition. 
In  her  second  letter  "to  the  ladies  of  Baltimore"  she  says: 
"What  is  wanted,  therefore,  is  not  so  much  an  acknowledge 
ment  of  its  wickedness  as  a  general  desire  for  its  immediate  ex 
tinction,"  etc.  ("Memoir,"  page  45.) 


APPENDIX   B. 

In  his  memoir  of  her,  written  in  1836,  Lundy  says  :  "She 
was  the  first  American  female  author  that  ever  made  this  subject 
the  principal  theme  of  her  active  exertions.  .  .  .  She  ranked  as 
second  to  none  among  the  female  philanthropists  of  modern 
times  who  have  devoted  their  attention  to  it,  if  we  except  the 
justly  celebrated  Elizabeth  Heyrick,  of  England." 

During  the  six  months'  effort  in  1829-'30  to  re-establish  the 
"Genius,"  she  freely  advocated  in  her  department  of  the  paper 
the  doctrine  of  immediate  abolition,  devoting  at  least  twice  as 
much  space  to  it  as  Mr.  Garrison  did,  and  quoting  freely  from 
the  last  and  most  able  work  of  Miss  Heyrick  *  on  the  subject. 

Mr.  Garrison  announced  the  doctrine  in  his  salutatory  and  ap 
proved  it  in  some  half-dozen  other  articles,  none  of  which  were 
elaborate.  He  qualified  it,  however,  as  follows  :  "Let  me  here 
remark  that  I  do  not  advocate  total  and  instantaneous  abolition 
without  at  the  same  time  urging  the  duty  of  the  States  to  make 
liberal  provisions  and  suitable  regulations  Try  law  for  the  mainte 
nance  and  government  of  the  emancipated  blacks.  For  every 
imaginary  or  real  evil  I  propose  a  safe  antidote." 

That  Mr.  Lundy  not  only  acquiesced  in  but  cordially  approved 
the  doctrine  is  proved  by  his  republication,  in  the  "  Genius"  of 
December,  1825,  of  Miss  Heyrick's  pamphlet,  by  his  indorse 
ment  (September  11,  1827)  of  that  lady's  second  work  on  the 
same  subject,  and  of  Rev.  James  Duncan's  book,  by  his  con 
tinued  publication  of  Miss  Chandler's  articles,  by  numerous 
"  enunciations  "  of  it  by  other  writers,  and  by  his  special  indorse 
ment  of  Garrison's  articles  in  the  last  number  (March  5,  1830)  of 
the  "Genius,"  which  was  edited  by  them  jointly.  In  reference 
to  these  articles  he  says  :  "I  fully  acquit  him  [Garrison]  of  in 
tentionally  inserting  anything  knowing  that  it  would  ~be  thus  dis 
approved." 

*  In  his  speech  at  the  "  Third  Decade  Meeting  "  (p.  121)  Mr.  Garrison 
says  :  "  From  the  moment  that  the  doctrine  of  immediate  emancipation 
was  enunciated  in  the  columns  of  the  '  Genius,'  as  it  had  not  been  up  to 
that  hour,  it  was  like  a  bombshell,"  etc.  In  comparison  with  the  columns 
themselves,  with  which  Garrison  was  familiar,  this  statement  is  seen  to 
be  without  foundation  in  fact.  These  bombshells  had  been  exploding 
during  the  five  years  preceding  Mr.  Garrison's  arrival  in  Baltimore.  Had 
Mr.  Garrison  never  seen  the  files  of  the  u  Genius  "  ? 


402  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

As  the  doctrine  had  been  fully  discussed  between  them  and 
was  of  the  first  importance,  as  the  "Genius"  had  advocated  it 
for  four  years  and  Lundy  had  acquiesced  for  six  months  in  its 
editorial  advocacy  by  both  Mr.  Garrison  and  Miss  Chandler  and 
continued  for  the  rest  of  his  life  to  advocate  it  himself,  and  as  he 
made  an  arrangement  soon  after  with  Garrison  to  join  him  in 
editing  the  "Genius"  at  Washington,  the  above  indorsement 
fully  covers  Garrison's  articles  on  immediate  abolition.  He  knew 
that  Benjamin  Lundy  would  approve  them,*  and  that  in  all  mat 
ters  regarding  slavery  they  were  united.  In  his  parting  editorial 
notice  Garrison  says  :  "Although  our  partnership  is  at  an  end, 
I  trust  we  shall  ever  remain  one  in  spirit  and  purpose  and  that  the 
cause  of  emancipation  will  suffer  no  detriment." 

*  The  articles  inserted  in  Mr.  Lundy's  absence  and  of  which  he  dis 
approved  were  on  sundry  political  subjects,  especially  those  favoring 
Henry  Clay  for  the  presidency.  He  had  no  faith  in  Mr.  Clay  as  a  states 
man,  and  had  so  stated  in  the  "  Genius."  Mr.  Garrison's  faith  in  Clay 
was  ardent.  In  his  prospectus  of  August,  1830,  for  a  paper  at  Washing 
ton,  Mr.  Garrison  says  :  "  I  shall  give  a  dignified  support  to  Henry  Clay 
and  the  American  system."  (See  vol.  i  of  "  Life,"  p.  201.) 

-  Mr.  Lundy,  on  the  contrary,  regarded  Mr.  Clay  as  chiefly  responsible 
for  the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave  State,  the  greatest  error  in 
American  statesmanship  up  to  that  time,  and  he  treated  him  as  an  enemy 
of  the  cause  of  the  slave. 

In  his  "Third  Decade  Speech"  (1863)  Mr.  Garrison  attributes  his 
signing  his  editorials  in  the  "  Genius  "  with  his  initials  to  the  common 
desire  of  himself  and  Mr.  Lundy  that  the  latter  should  be  relieved  from 
responsibility  for  the  doctrine  of  immediatism.  At  the  time  that  speech 
was  delivered  Mr.  Lundy  had  been  in  his  grave  twenty-four  years  and 
could  file  no  caveat  against  Mr.  Garrison's  attempt  at  pre-emption.  If 
Mr.  Garrison  had  signed  his  initials  to  no  other  editorials  than  the  very 
few  on  immediatism,  his  statement  might  be  accepted  ;  but  the  fact  that 
he  signed  them  to  his  numerous  notices  of  books,  magazines,  newspapers, 
and  sermons,  and  to  articles  long  or  short  on  embezzlers,  Indians,  swift 
steamboats,  Mr.  Clay,  intemperance,  popular  bombast,  his  own  birthday, 
etc.,  indicates  vanity  of  authorship  and  not  a  desire  to  assume  exclusive 
responsibility  for  unpopular  views.  The  fact  that  in  the  same  numbers 
of  the  "  Genius  "  immediatism  was  advocated  in  the  ladies'  department 
without  initials,  proves  that  Benjamin  Lundy  was  not  shirking  responsi- 
bilitv  for  that  doctrine. 


APPENDIX  B.  403 

This  contemporaneous,  mutual  recognition  of  their  unity  re 
futes  the  insinuations  made  by  Garrison  against  Lundy  in  his 
life  which  have  grown  into  definite  charges  since  his  death. 

In  1831  he  copied  in  full  Garrison's  explanation  of  the  doctrine 
and  indorsed  it  as  plainly  as  he  could.  To  an  imputation  made  in 
1832  by  Garrison  against  his  soundness  of  doctrine  he  answered: 

"My  sentiments  have  ever  been  adverse  to  the  principle  that 
tolerates  the  monstrous  anomaly  in  our  free  institutions  that  man 
can  be  viewed  as  the  property  of  man.  I  deny  its  correctness  in 
toto.  I  have  asserted,  and  the  assertion  has  been  recorded  a 
hundred  times,  that  no  man  can  in  justice  hold  another  as  a  slave 
a  single  moment."  ("  Genius"  for  1832,  page  208.) 

In  Earle's  ' '  Life  of  Lundy  "  (page  308)  his  half-sister  writes  : 

"He  was  much  grieved  that  the  advocates  of  the  cause  of 
emancipation  seemed  not  to  enter  into  the  view  of  Elizabeth 
Heyrick  respecting  immediate  emancipation  as  he  did.  He 
talked  much  to  me  about  it  and  lamented  it,  for,  said  he,  the 
view  was  a  sound  one.  ...  He  has  sometimes  been  represented 
as  opposed  to  the  measure  of  immediate  emancipation.  This,  I 
believe,  icas  not  true." 

That  Lundy  was  sound  to  the  core  on  all  questions  affecting 
human  liberty  will  not  be  doubted  by  any  unbiased,  intelligent 
reader  of  the  "  Genius."  In  the  matter  of  political  action  against 
slavery  he  was  in  advance  of  most  of  his  contemporaries.  From 
a  very  early  date,  even  during  his  residence  in  Tennessee,  he  ad 
vocated  a  resort  to  the  ballot-box,  and  in  Maryland  he  aided  in 
the  most  effective  movement  of  the  kind  made  before  1830  except 
the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  Illinois  by  popular  vote  in  1824. 
He  was  one  of  the  first  in  1828  and  1829  to  expose  the  designs  of 
the  Jackson  party  managers  to  acquire  Texas  and  to  answer  the 
articles  in  which  Thomas  H.  Benton,  Duff  Green,  and  the 
"Richmond  Inquirer  "  advocated  the  creation  of  six  to  nine  new 
slave  States  and  the  ascendency  of  the  slave  power.  After  his  re 
turn  from  Mexico  his  pamphlet  against  the  annexation  of  Texas  and 
the  abundant  information  on  that  subject  given  by  him  to  John 
Quincy  Adams  were  among  the  strongest  causes  (after  Guerrero's 
abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas  and  his  refusal  in  1829  to  sell  that 
Territory  to  the  United  States)  of  the  temporary  defeat  of  that 
measure  of  the  slave  power. 


404:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND   HIS  TIMES. 

In  the  prosecution  of  his  reform  he  steadily  invoked  the  active 
aid  of  the  women  of  the  country.  He  established  free  labor 
produce  stores  in  several  cities  and  accomplished  a  great  deal, 
particularly  among  the  Friends,  in  the  matter  of  abstention  from 
the  products  of  slave  labor.  Though  he  was  not  an  eloquent 
public  speaker,  he  lectured  on  slavery  to  more  than  two  hundred 
assemblies  of  people,  moving  them  to  action  by  his  thorough 
knowledge  of  his  subject,  his  earnestness,  and  his  array  of  facts ; 
but  his  permanent  reputation  must  rest  on  his  journal,  which  is 
the  most  valuable  record  of  anti-slavery  opinions  and  movements 
in  the  times  of  which  it  treats. 

Between  the  close  of  the  war  in  1815  and  the  year  1830  there 
were  published  the  following  journals  which  avowed  the  extinc 
tion  of  slavery  as  one,  if  not  the  chief  one,  of  their  objects  : 
.  1.  The  Philanthropist  (Ohio),  1817. 

&  The  Emancipator  (Tennessee),  1819. 

3.  The  Abolition  Intelligencer  (Kentucky),  1822. 

4.  The  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation  (Ohio,  Tennessee, 
and  Maryland),  1821. 

5.  Edwardsville  Spectator  (Illinois),*  1822. 

6.  Illinois  Intelligencer,*  1823. 

7.  The  African  Observer  (Philadelphia),  1826. 

8.  Freedom's  Journal  (New  York  city),  1827. 

9.  The  Investigator  (Goodell's),  1827. 

10.  The  National  Philanthropist  (Boston),  f  1827. 

11.  The  Journal  of  the  Times  (Vermont),  1828. 

12.  The  Liberalist  (New  Orleans),  1828. 

This  list  does  not  include  the  "African  Repository11  (1826) 
and  other  distinctively  colonization  papers.  Of  the  twelve, 
"The  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation'1  must  be  assigned  to 
the  head  of  the  column  for  substantial  merit. 

The  only  way  to  form  an  adequate  idea  of  the  extent  and 

*  See  Washburne's  "  Sketch  of  Edward  Coles,"  p.  167. 

f  In  "The  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation"  of  March  3,  1827, 
is  the  following  extract  from  an  editorial  in  the  "National  Philan 
thropist  "  : 

"  We  had  in  view  when  we  adopted  it  (our  title)  the  three  great  evils 
with  which  the  world  is  cursed — war,  slavery,  and  intemperance,  especially 
the  latter." 


APPENDIX  B,  405 

depth  of  anti-slavery  sentiment  in  the  United  States  in  the  period 
under  consideration  is  to  glean  from  these  papers  the  articles  ex 
pressing  it  which  are  copied  from  other  newspapers.  Charles 
Osborn  republished  in  the  "Philanthropist"  anti-slavery  articles 
from  the  following  papers  :  Chester  and  Delaware  Federalist, 
Federal  Republican  and  Baltimore  Telegraph,  Alexandria  (Va.) 
Gazette,  Providence  Gazette,  Westchester  Record,  and  Freeman's 
Journal. 

Lundy  copies  similar  articles  from  the  following  :  Richmond 
Whig,  Alexandria  Gazette,  Winchester  (Ya.)  Republican,  Vil 
lage  Record  (Pennsylvania),  Baltimore  American,  The  Berean, 
United  States  Gazette,  Abolition  Intelligencer,  New  York  Re 
corder,  Christian  Observer,  Saturday  Evening  Post,  New  York 
Observer,  American  Economist,  Western  Luminary  (Kentucky), 
Richmond  Family  Visitor,  Freedom's  Journal,  American  Farmer, 
Ohio  Repository,  Saturday  Evening  Chronicle,  Maryland  Repub 
lican,  Zion's  Herald,  Greensborough  (N.  C.)  Patriot,  New  Lisbon 
Patriot,  Frederick  (Md.)  Political  Examiner,  Washington  (Pa.) 
Examiner,  National  Advocate,  Russellville  (Ky.)  Messenger,  New 
York  Daily  Advertiser,  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  Baltimore  Gazette, 
Visitor  and  Telegraph,  Genius  of  Temperance,  Baltimore  Patriot, 
African  Repository,  American,  National  Philanthropist,  Lebanon 
Gazette,  Democratic  Press,  Cincinnati  Gazette  (Hammond's), 
Journal  of  the  Times  (Vermont),  Vertical  Press,  and  the  New 
England  Enquirer.  (43.)  (For  books,  etc.,  during  and  before 
this  period  on  slavery,  see  Appendix  A.)  Considering  that  the 
American  press  was  then  in  its  infancy,  the  era  of  the  "  Herald" 
and  the  "  Tribune  "  and  other  modern  journals  not  having  then 
begun,  that  Lundy  had  few  exchanges  and  probably  did  not 
copy  for  want  of  space  in  his  paper  more  than  one  tenth  of  the 
anti-slavery  articles  published,  it  is  clear  that  the  sentiment  of 
the  American  press,  except  in  the  extreme  South,  was  against 
slavery  between  1817  and  1830.  This  harmonizes  with  the  fact 
that  within  that  period  the  legislatures  of  three  States  (Ohio, 
Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jersey)  passed  joint  resolutions  recom 
mending  the  abolition  of  slavery  by  national  compensation  to  the 
masters  and  professing  willingness  to  bear  their  proportion  of 
the  expense. 

It  would  be  a  departure  from  the  plan  of  this  book  to  enter 


406  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

into  any  biographical  details  in  regard  to  Mr.  Lundy  except  such 
as  illustrate  the  public  opinion  of  his  day.  He  richly  merits  a 
revised  and  improved  edition  of  the  hastily  written  sketch  by 
Thomas  Earle.  We  must  part  here  with  the  heroic  Quaker.* 

*  The  confidence  inspired  by  the  personal  character  of  Lundy  was  so 
great  that  a  large  number  of  slaves,  in  one  case  eighty-eight,  Avere  manu 
mitted  and  sent  to  suitable  refuges  under  his  advice.  In  that  day  nearly 
all,  if  not  all,  the  free  States  had  what  were  called  u  Black  laws,"  pro 
hibiting  under  heavy  penalties  the  bringing  of  negroes  within  their  lim 
its,  while  of  the  slave  States  that  permitted  manumission  at  all  some  re 
quired  heavy  bonds,  with  sureties  for  their  good  behavior  and  support, 
and  others,  for  instance  North  Carolina,  required  them  to  leave  the  State 
within  ninety  days  under  penalty  of  being  sold  again  into  slavery.  The 
freed  negroes  were  left  without  a  safe  refuge  from  persecution  except  in 
Canada.  Lundy's  heart  was  deeply  touched  by  their  wretched  condition. 
He  went  twice  to  Hayti  in  their  behalf  and  made  arrangements  for  their 
reception.  By  his  means,  direct  and  indirect,  about  two  thousand  slaves 
were  manumitted  and  placed  in  security.  These  acts  of  noble  devotion 
to  the  oppressed  have  been  tortured  by  jealousy  into  a  foundation  for 
the  charge  against  him  of  being  a  colonizationist,  a  charge  refuted  by  the 
"  Genius,"  but  necessary  to  Mr.  Garrison's  claim  to  pre-empt  the  doctrine 
of  anti-colonizationism.  Let  Lundy  have  his  laurels  !  Is  there  not  glory 
enough  for  all  abolitionists  ?  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  three  individuals 
who  in  the  history  of  the  struggle  for  abolition  effected  freedom  for  the 
largest  number  of  slaves  were  Elisha  Tyson,  Benjamin  Lundy,  and  Lcvi 
Coffin,  the  president  of  the  Cincinnati  Underground  Kailroad  Company. 
Each  wrought  by  his  own  methods,  and  not  one  of  them  probably  ever 
saw  either  of  the  two  others. 


APPENDIX  C. 

ASSOCIATIONS   OF  A  NATIONAL   CHARACTER   TO 
PROMOTE  THE  ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY. 

IN  the  first  forty  years  after  the  formation  of  the  national 
Constitution  abolition  societies  were  active  in  nine  of  the  original 
thirteen  States.  There  were  none  in  Massachusetts  and  New 
Hampshire  because  there  was  no  need  of  them,  or  in  Georgia  and 
South  Carolina  because  those  States  were  completely  under  the 
control  of  the  slave-holding  interest.  Either  they  or  the  influ 
ences  that  created  them  abolished  slavery  in  the  five  States  of 
Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  New 
York,  ending  with  the  last  named  on  the  4th  of  July,  1827. 
They  failed  in  the  four  States  of  Maryland,  Delaware,  Virginia, 
and  North  Carolina. 

Originally  each  of  these  organizations  acted  in  the  State  in 
which  it  existed.  Practically  it  did  not  need  the  co-operation  of 
the  others  for  its  special  purposes.  There  was,  therefore,  no  af 
filiation  between  them  until  the  common  sentiment  in  favor  of 
putting  an  end  to  the  African  slave  trade  made  them  feel  the  ab 
solute  necessity  of  a  closer  union.  In  December,  1791,  the  abo 
lition  societies  of  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  Penn 
sylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  sent  separate  memorials  to 
Congress  praying  for  action  against  the  slave  trade.  In  the 
House  these  papers  were  referred  to  a  special  committee.  No 
further  action  was  had,  a  neglect  which  excited  the  indignation 
of  the  memorialists.  A  correspondence  between  them  ensued 
which  resulted  in  an  agreement  of  the  societies  to  send  delegates 
to  meet  in  convention  at  Philadelphia  on  the  first  day  of  Janu 
ary,  1794.  The  societies  represented  on  this  occasion  were  the 
six  above  named  and  those  of  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Wilming- 


408  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY   AND   HIS  TIMES. 

ton  (Del.),  and  Chestertown  (Md.).  With  the  exception  of  1799, 
1802,  1805,  and  1807,  similar  conventions  of  delegates  were  held 
every  year  until  1808,  after  which,  owing  partly  to  the  abolition 
of  the  African  slave  trade  in  that  year,  but  chiefly  to  the  troubled 
condition  of  the  country — the  embargo  and  the  war  with  Great 
Britain — they  were  not  resumed  until  1814.  Beginning  with 
that  year  they  were  regularly  held  biennially  until  1824.  Though 
the  system  of  stated  conferences  of  delegates  of  local  societies, 
without  organization  during  the  long  intervals  of  adjournment, 
without  funds,  newspaper  presses,  or  lecturers,  was  the  natural 
one  so  long  as  the  object  of  each  society  was  to  abolish  slavery 
in  the  State  within  which  such  society  existed,  that  system  was 
altogether  inadequate  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  situation 
after  the  great  upheaval  of  the  North  in  the  Missouri  contro 
versy.  William  Goodell,  the  historian  of  "Slavery  and  Anti- 
Slavery,"  says  :  * 

' '  If  Henry  Clay  could  but  have  known  how  many  were  made 
uncompromising  abolitionists  by  their  disgust  with  that  unholy 
compromise  he  would  have  found  less  occasion  to  congratulate 
himself  with  the  results.  The  present  (1852)  anti-slavery  excite 
ment  may  be  distinctly  traced  in  part  to  the  earnest  debates 
among  the  people  elicited  by  that  same  Missouri  Compromise. 
The  '  settlement '  of  the  question  by  Congress  was  only  the  signal 
for  its  agitation  among  their  constituents." 

Of  Rhode  Island,  the  State  of  his  residence  at  that  time,  Mr. 
Goodell  says  : 

1 '  Party  lines  for  the  time  being  were  well  nigh  erased  and 
the  terms  '  anti-slavery '  and  '  pro-slavery  '  took  the  place  of  Fed 
eralist  and  Republican.  The  files  of  newspapers,  particularly 
the  Providence  'Gazette,'  bear  testimony  that  the  discussion  be 
came  as  '  radical '  then  as  it  is  now,  and  that  nearly  the  same  ar 
guments  pro  and  con  were  then  in  use.  Some  who  commenced 
writing  against  slavery  and  compromise  then^  have  not  ceased 

*  Page  384. 

f  William  Goodell,  Joshua  Leavitt,  Rev.  James  Duncan,  and  John 
Rankin,  began  .to  publish  articles  against  slavery  about  that  time.  Ben 
jamin  Lundy  issued  his  "  Genius  "  in  1821,  and  John  Finley  Crowe  "  The 
Abolition  Intelligencer  "  (Kentucky)  in  1822. 


APPENDIX  C.  409 

writing  against  them  still.     The  author  may  be  permitted  to 
record  himself  among  these."     (Page  384.) 

The  year  1824  was  marked  by  the  removal  of  Lundy's  press 
to  Baltimore,  the  anti-slavery  victory  at  the  polls  in  Illinois,  the 
declaration  of  the  Ohio  and  New  Jersey  Legislatures  in  favor  of 
abolition  by  national  legislation,  and  the  election  of  John  Quincy 
Adams  to  the  presidency.  Under  the  magnetic  influence  of  these 
favorable  events  the  anti-slavery  societies  wakened  into  vigorous 
activity.  The  annual  conventions  of  delegates  were  resumed 
and  were  held  in  each  year  of  the  Adams  Administration.  The 
tendency  in  them  to  the  assumption  of  the  relation  of  parent  so 
ciety  to  auxiliaries  became  more  and  more  marked  ;  but  they 
could  not  rid  themselves  of  the  original  feature  of  the  delegate 
principle.  Their  operations  were  not  openly  indorsed  by  the 
Administration  nor  were  they  discountenanced.  To  be  an  abo 
litionist  was  no  disqualification  for  office  under  the  National 
Government  under  Adams.  Among  the  agents  for  Lundy's  paper 
there  were  nine  postmasters,  most  of  them  in  the  South,  and 
their  names  were  published  in  its  columns.  Among  the  officers 
and  delegates  of  the  abolition  conventions  there  were  several  men 
of  national  reputation  who  were  noted  friends  of  the  national 
Administration.  William  Rawle  (president),  Horace  Binney,  and 
John  Sergeant,  of  Philadelphia  ;  William  L.  Stone,  Hiram 
Ketchum,  and  Cadwallader  D.  Golden,  of  New  York,  were  of 
this  number,  and  they  attended  or  were  officers  of  the  conven 
tions  in  1824,  1825,  1826,  and  1827.  When  the  political  skies 
began  to  darken  over  Adams  in  the  disastrous  presidential  cam 
paign  of  1828,  and  it  became  manifest  that  Clay  with  his  slave- 
holding  policy  would  succeed  to  the  Whig  leadership,  the  above- 
named  gentlemen  with  one  accord  abandoned  the  abolition 
movement.  Not  one  of  them  appeared  at  Baltimore  in  the  dele 
gate  convention  of  1828,  and  not  one  of  their  names  is  mentioned 
in  the  proceedings  of  that  body.  The  convention  itself  was  a 
failure.  Both  the  president  and  vice-president  were  absent,  and 
of  the  thirteen  delegates  present  six  were  residents  of  the  city  of 
Baltimore.  Evan  Lewis  was  there  from  New  York.  Thomas 
Shipley  was  elected  president  pro  tern.,  and  Edwin  P.  Atlee  sec 
retary.  Both  of  these  were  from  Philadelphia.  This  sudden 
and  unexpected  defection  of  the  Whig  politicians  must  have 
19 


410  JAMES  Gr.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

been  extremely  discouraging  to  the  societies.  Its  full  meaning, 
that  Herod  and  Pilate  were  about  to  combine  against  Christ, 
they  may  not  have  comprehended  and  measured  in  its  probable 
results.  The  hundred  and  six  Southern  auxiliaries  still  re 
mained.  These  could  not  be  deserted.* 

Another  convention  (the  twenty-first)  was  called  to  meet  at 
Washington  city,  December  3,  1829.  This  was  the  expiring  ef 
fort  of  the  delegate  system.  Not  only  were  the  Whig  politicians 
absent,  but  there  was  not  a  single  delegate  present  from  any  of 
the  societies  formerly  existing  in  the  slave  States  south  of  the 
District  of  Columbia.  In  1827  there  had  been  more  than  a  hun 
dred  of  these.  Lundy  was  there.  He  was  ashamed  to  own  the 
dismal  failure  of  the  convention.  In  the  "Genius"  of  Decem 
ber  25,  1829,  he  says  the  number  present  was  "smaller  than  had 
been  anticipated."  It  must  have  been  very  small.  The  general 
defection  of  the  Southern  societies,  following  upon  that  of  the 
Whig  politicians,  should  have  opened  the  eyes  of  the  few  who 
remained  faithful.  Left  without  leaders  or  constituency,  having 
achieved  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Northern  States,  but 
having  no  strength  to  lift  the  gage  of  battle  for  national  suprem 
acy  through  Texas  annexation  which  had  been  thrown  down  by 
the  slave  power  in  the  election  of  Jackson,  they  should  have 
abdicated  the  leadership,  terminated  the  delegate  system,  and 
joined  in  an  effort  to  unite  all  the  abolitionists  of  the  coun 
try  in  an  army  strong  enough  to  fight  the  national  battle  then 
imminent. 

But  they  did  not  see.  Men  cling  long  to  outworn  forms. 
The  old  abolition  societies  which  had  supported  the  delegate 
system  for  forty  years  could  not  give  it  up  at  once.  They  could 
not  believe  that  the  prospects  of  emancipation  in  Maryland,  Vir 
ginia,  and  North  Carolina  which  had  been  so  bright  in  1827 

*  These  wore  distributed  in  1827  as  follows:  Delaware,  2;  District 
of  Columbia,  2;  Kentucky,  8 ;  Virginia,  8;  Maryland,  11;  Tennessee, 
25  ;  and  North  Carolina,  60.  The  membership  comprised  6,625  persons. 
There  were  12  auxiliaries  in  Illinois,  and  12  more  in  Pennsylvania,  New 
York,  and  Ohio.  All  these  were  reported  to  the  American  Abolitionist 
Convention  in  1827.  (See  "Proceedings.")  Of  unreported  anti-slavery 
societies  there  were  probably  between  50  and  70.  Consult  Poole's  pam 
phlet,  p.  72. 


APPENDIX  C.  411 

were  utterly  overclouded  in  1828.  Nor  could  they  comprehend 
that  in  electing  General  Jackson  without  previous  discussion  of 
slavery  extension  and  Texas  annexation  the  country  had  practi 
cally  changed  its  policy,  and  the  nation  had  without  shout  of 
command  or  blare  of  trumpet  executed  a  left  wheel  upon  its  cen 
ter,  marched  into  the  camp  of  the  slave  power,  and  surrendered 
at  discretion  ;  and  so,  being  blind,  they  issued  a  call  for  another 
convention.  But  this  never  convened.  The  delegate  system  had 
had  its  day  ;  it  was  dead. 

From  the  time  of  the  Missouri  controversy,  which  had  re 
vealed  the  inherent  weakness  of  the  delegate  system,  the  aboli 
tion  sentiment  of  the  North  was  growing  away  from  it.  In  the 
exciting  battle  of  1822-24:  for  the  rescue  of  Illinois,  the  conven 
tion  was  not  known  in  the  leadership  of  the  anti-slavery  forces  ; 
nor  was  its  primacy  acknowledged  by  the  greater  number  of  the 
societies  which  were  organized  between  1820  and  1830  under 
the  names  of  Abolition,  Aiding  Abolition,  Manumission,  Eman 
cipation,  Gradual  Emancipation,  Anti-Slavery,  Constitution,  Free 
Labor,  Free  Produce,  Union  Humane,  Benevolent,  African  Pro 
tection,  Friends  of  Humanity,  Moral  and  Religious,  and  others 
more  or  less  expressive  of  their  anti-slavery  character.  The  as 
sumption  that  the  few  societies  which  sent  delegates  to  the  con 
vention  were  almost  the  only  ones  of  the  kind  in  existence  before 
1830  is  an  error  into  which  many  worthy  writers  have  fallen.  In 
truth,  from  the  time  of  the  revival  of  anti-slavery  action  in  1814, 
the  discussion  of  slavery  increased  from  year  to  year  in  geomet 
rical  progression,  and  until  1830  the  formation  of  societies  kept 
pace  with  the  discussion  ;  nor  did  the  convention  contribute  in 
any  perceptible  manner  to  the  triumphs  of  anti-slavery  sentiment 
in  the  legislatures  of  the  Northern  States.  Between  1824  and 
1827  the  General  Assemblies  of  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jer 
sey,  had  each  passed  resolutions  in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  slav 
ery  by  national  legislation,  and  professed  willingness  that  those 
States  should  bear  their  respective  proportions  of  the  necessary 
expenditure.  In  1828  the  Pennsylvania  Legislature,  by  an  almost 
unanimous  vote,  "Resolved,  That  the  Senators  of  this  State,  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  are  hereby  requested  to  procure, 
if  practicable,  the  passage  of  a  law  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia  in  such  a  manner  as  they  may  consider  consist- 


412  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ent  with  the  rights  of  individuals  and  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States."* 

On  the  28th  of  January,  1829,  the  New  York  Assembly  "Re 
solved,  If  the  Senate  concur  herein,  that  the  Senators  of  this 
State  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  be  and  are  hereby  in 
structed,  and  the  representatives  of  this  State  are  requested  to 
make  every  possible  exertion  to  effect  the  passage  of  a  law  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  "f 

On  the  9th  of  January,  1829,  the  House  of  Representatives, 
United  States,  "  Resolved,  That  the  Committee  of  the  District  of 
Columbia  be  instructed  to  inquire  into  the  expediency  (not  the 
right)  of  providing  by  law  for  the  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  District  in  such  manner  that  no  individual  shall  be  injured 
thereby. "  J 

The  statement  that  "  after  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820 
a  paralysis  fell  on  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  country  " 
(G.,  i,  90)  is  not  justified  by  the  facts.  The  truth  is  that  for 
substantial  anti-slavery  victories  no  subsequent  decade  up  to  1850 
can  compare  with  the  one  ending  in  1830.  The  final  exclusion 
of  slavery  from  Illinois  in  1824,  its  total  abolition  in  New  York 
in  1827,  the  formation  of  more  than  a  hundred  abolition  societies 
in  slave  States,  and  the  anti-slavery  action  of  three  Northern 
legislatures  in  and  before  1829,  are  facts  which  alone  should 
vindicate  the  healthy  state  of  anti-slavery  opinion  in  the  North 
during  that  decade.  The  old  convention  system  did  not  expire 
because  anti-slavery  sentiment  was  suffering  "  paralysis,"  but  be 
cause  it  was  inadequate  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  vigorous 
sentiment  which  dated  from  1820.  The  old  shell  was  sloughed 
off  that  the  new  life  might  have  free  play.  The  sickle  gave 
place  to  the  mowing-machine  ;  the  stage  coach  to  the  railroad 
train. 

The  quotation  in  Appendix  B  from  the  "Genius"  of  July, 
1831,  proves  that  "men  of  wealth  and  influence  are  [were]  about 
to  engage  in  forming  an  American  Anti-Slavery  Society."  The 
project  wras  delayed  in  its  execution  by  the  Nat  Turner  insurrec 
tion  of  August  21st,  the  expectation  of  a  successful  emancipation 
movement  in  Virginia  during  the  winter  of  1831-'32,  the  intense 

*  Jay's  Inquiry,  p.  161.  f  Ibid.,  p.  1G1.  %  Ibid.,  p.  161. 


APPENDIX  C.  413 

activity  infused  into  anti-slavery  movements  by  the  attempt  of 
President  Jackson  in  March,  1829,  to  purchase  Texas,  the  reluc 
tance  of  the  convention  men  to  assume  a  leadership  not  recognized 
by  the  recently  formed  societies,  and  the  necessity  of  correspond 
ence  and  interviews  between  the  many  persons  interested.  Mean 
while,  between  1829  and  November,  1833,  many  new  anti-slavery 
societies*  had  been  formed;  about  thirty  newspapers  f  were 
actively  advocating  the  abolition  cause  ;  in  1829  Mexico  had 
foiled  President  Jackson  by  abolishing  slavery  ;  on  the  1st  of 
August,  1833,  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  had  passed  the 
act  for  emancipation  the  following  year  in  the  British  West  In 
dies  ;  and  the  whole  North  was  stirred  to  its  depths  on  the  slav 
ery  question.  To  bring  all  the  societies  and  presses  into  effective 

*  The  lists  of  auxiliaries  published  with  the  annual  reports  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society  for  1836,  1837,  and  1838,  show  by  dates 
that  36  had  been  organized  before  the  national  society,  and  enumerate 
more  than  twice  as  many  without  date  of  organization.  Of  this  last  class 
at  least  50  were  in  existence  before  December,  1833.  Not  reckoning  the 
130  auxiliaries  of  the  Abolition  Convention,  there  were  nearly  if  not 
quite  100  anti-slavery  societies  whose  organization  antedates  that  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society. 

f  In  the  annual  report  of  the  managers  of  the  New  England  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  read  January  15, 1834,  and  probably  written  at  an  earlier 
date,  there  is  the  following  note : 

"  The  following  is  an  imperfect  list  of  the  newspapers  and  periodicals 
in  the  United  States  which  advocate  the  cause  of  abolition  :  '  Philanthro 
pist,'  Brownsville,  Pa. ;  '  Observer,'  Lowell,  Mass.  ;  '  State  Journal,'  Mont- 
pelier,  Vt. ;  '  Anti-Masonic  Enquirer,'  Rochester,  N.  Y. ;  '  Workingman's 
Press,'  New  Bedford,  Mass. ;  '  Rights  of  Man,'  Rochester,  N.  Y.  ;  '  Free 
Press,'  Hallowell,  Me.  ;  *  Gazette,'  Haverhill,  Mass. ;  *  Friend,'  Philadel 
phia,  Pa. ;  'Emancipator,'  New  York  city;  '  Massachusetts  Spy,'  Worces 
ter,  Mass. ;  '  Unionist,'  Brooklyn,  Conn.  ;  '  Record,'  Lynn,  Mass. ;  '  Evan 
gelist,'  New  York  city  ;  '  Canonsburg  Luminary,'  Pennsylvania  ;  '  New 
England  Telegraph,'  North  Wrentham,  Mass.  ;  '  Genius  of  Universal 
Emancipation,'  Washington,  D.  C. ;  '  Christian  Watchman,'  Boston,  Mass.; 
'  Messenger,'  Indiana  ;  '  Liberator,'  Boston  ;  '  Palladium,'  Bethania,  Pa. ; 
*  Freeman,'  Greenfield,  Mass. ;  '  Reporter,'  Watertown,  N.  Y. ;  '  Philan 
thropist,'  Providence,  R.  I.  ;  '  Christian  Secretary,'  Hartford,  Conn. ;  '  We, 
the  People,'  Plymouth,  Mass." 


414:  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

unity  was  the  need  of  the  hour.  It  is  believed  that  every  anti- 
slavery  society  and  press  then  in  existence  favored  the  formation 
of  a  national  society.  Several  resolutions  to  that  effect  had  been 
passed.  On  the  21st  of  January,  1833,  about  eighteen  months 
after  the  notice  quoted  in  our  thirteenth  chapter  from  the  "  Gen 
ius,"  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  had  authorized  its 
managers  "to  call  a  national  meeting  of  the  friends  of  abolition 
for  the  purpose  of  organizing  such  a  society  [national]  at  such 
time  and  place  as  they  shall  deem  expedient."  (Report  of  1833, 
page  8.)  But  as  the  managers,  in  their  report  for  1834  (page  12), 
mention  the  formation  of  the  American  society  without  report 
ing  any  action  of  their  own  contributing  to  it,  the  inference  is 
unavoidable  that  they  took  none. 

During  the  summer  of  1833,  the  general  demand  for  a  new 
national  organization  suited  to  the  wants  of  the  times  and  con 
trolling  funds  and  presses  became  so  urgent  that  meetings  were 
held  among  the  abolitionists  in  Philadelphia  to  consider  the  sub 
ject.  Those  of  them  who  had  figured  prominently  in  the  old 
convention  were  Thomas  Shipley,  Dr.  Edwin  P.  Atlee,  James 
Mott,  David  Paul  Brown,  Isaac  Barton,  Peter  Wright,  Thomas 
Earle,  Thomas  Parker,  Jr.,  Abram  L.  Pennock,  Dr.  Joseph  Par- 
rish,  Isaac  Fairish,  Dilwyn  Parrish,  William  S.  Hallowell,  Evan 
Lewis,  Enoch  Lewis,  and  Charles  S.  Cope.*  It  was  agreed  in 
their  conferences  that  Evan  Lewis,  who  had  formerly  resided  in 
New  York  city,  should  go  to  that  city  and  urge  the  Tap- 
pans  to  take  the  lead  in  the  formation  of  a  national  society. 
He  went  upon  this  mission  in  the  summer  of  1833,  saw  the  Tap- 
pans,  and  prevailed  upon  them  to  take  the  matter  into  consid 
eration. 

For  many  years  Arthur  Tappan  had  been  known  throughout 

*  All  these  favored  immediate  abolition  and  were  identified  with  the 
cause  both  before  and  after  the  formation  of  the  new  society.  It  is  be 
lieved,  indeed,  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  Southern  delegates  and  the 
six  Whig  politicians  named  in  the  text,  all  the  able  and  energetic  men 
who  had  acted  as  delegates  to  the  old  conventions  continued  their  anti- 
slavery  efforts  in  the  new  organization.  Evan  Lewis,  Edwin  P.  Atlee,  Ed 
win  A.  Atlee,  Thomas  Shipley,  Peter  Wright,  John  Sharp,  Jr.,  and  Isaac 
Barton,  were  among  the  men  who  formed  it,  and  Edwin  A.  Atlee  and 
Evan  Lewis  were  among  its  vice-presidents. 


APPENDIX  C.  415 

the  country  as  a  wealthy  merchant,  fervent  Christian,  and  liberal 
contributor  to  the  Church  and  to  the  Bible,  Tract,  Missionary,  Ed 
ucation,  and  other  religious  and  benevolent  associations.  He  was 
an  officer  in  several  of  them.  He  was  widely  known,  too,  as  opposed 
to  slavery.  In  the  twenties  he  aided  the  Colonization  Society. 
He  subscribed  to  Lundy's  paper,  and  in  1828  he  made  a  small 
donation  of  money  to  help  it  out  of  its  embarrassments.  In  1830 
he  was  elected  a  vice-president  of  the  African  Education  Society 
and  paid  Garrison's  fine  at  Baltimore  to  release  him  from  prison, 
and  in  1831  he  endeavored  to  establish  an  African  high  school  at 
New  Haven.  In  March,  1833,  he  and  his  brother  Lewis  estab 
lished  the  "Emancipator"  (Goodell's  "Slavery  and  Anti-Slav 
ery,"  p.  392),  which  soon  gained  an  extensive  circulation.  He  aided 
the  "New  York  Evangelist,"  which  was  both  Presbyterian  and 
anti-slavery.  About  the  same  time  he  printed  and  circulated  at 
his  own  expense  five  thousand  copies  of  Whittier's  excellent  pam 
phlet  against  slavery.  Goodell  (page  392)  says  :  "By  co-opera 
tion  between  the  Messrs.  Tappan  and  a  fewr  others,  very  large  issues 
of  anti-slavery  tracts  were  circulated  monthly  during  the  greater 
part  of  this  year  and  sent  by  mail,"  etc.  Lewis  Tappan  adopts 
this  statement  in  his  brother's  "Life "  (page  168).  It  was  chiefly 
through  the  munificence,  discretion,  and  activity  of  the  Tappans, 
aided  by  the  counsel  of  William  Jay  and  the  editorial  ability  of 
William  Goodell,  Joshua  Leavitt,  and  Elizur  Wright,  that  before 
General  Jackson's  first  presidential  term  had  expired  New  York 
had  become  the  head  center  of  abolition  influence.  By  general 
recognition  of  the  public  Arthur  Tappan  was  the  leader,  and  his 
brother  Lewis  ranked  next.  Arthur's  strength  lay  in  his  wisdom, 
firmness,  discretion,  and  liberality  ;  Lewis's  in  his  ready  tact, 
will-power,  strong  convictions,  and  indefatigable  activity.  Ar 
thur  was  not  a  public  speaker  ;  Lewis  was  fluent,  clear,  and  forci 
ble.  Arthur  had  no  taste  for  public  business  ;  Lewis,  if  he  had 
been  elected  representative  in  Congress,  would  have  led  the 
house.  There  was  no  jealousy  between  the  brothers,  and  the 
two  were  strong  enough  to  lead  the  strong  men  who  composed 
the  abolition  army  between  1829  and  1834. 

The  visit  of  Evan  Lewis  to  New  York  was  the  abdication  of 
the  Philadelphia  abolitionists  who  had  led  to  the  Tappans  who 
were  to  lead.  The  former  capital  ceded  precedence  to  the  new 


416  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

metropolis.  The  project  was  discussed  in  August  and  Septem- 
tember,  but  no  definite  action  was  taken  before  the  New  York 
city  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  formed.  How,  when,  and  why 
this  occurred  we  will  let  Lewis  Tappan  tell.  He  says  : 

"The  abolitionists  of  the  city  had  made  such  progress  in  the 
diffusion  of  their  sentiments  that  they  were  encouraged  in  the 
belief  that  the  time  had  come  to  form  a  society  and  thus  combine 
and  extend  their  influence.  Accordingly  a  call  was  made  for  a 
meeting  of  the  friends  of  immediate  emancipation,  to  be  held  at 
Clinton  Hall  on  the  second  day  of  October,  1833.  The  notice 
was  published  in  the  papers  of  the  day  and  by  show-bills  put  up 
in  the  streets  and  on  public  buildings. "  * 

He  then  gives  an  account  of  the  mob,  the  manner  in  which  it 
was  foiled  in  its  purposes,  the  formation  of  the  society  at  Chat 
ham  Street  Chapel,  and  the  names  of  its  officers.  These  were 
Arthur  Tappan,  "W.  Green,  John  Rankin,  Elizur  Wright,  Charles 
W.  Denison,  Joshua  Leavitt,  Isaac  T.  Hopper,  Abram  L.  Cox, 
Lewis  Tappan,  and  William  Goodell. 

In  the  last  half  of  September  brief  intimations  were  made 
through  the  anti-slavery  papers  that  a  convention  was  to  be  held 
to  form  a  national  anti-slavery  society  and  a  future  official  notice 
was  promised.  Referring  to  the  formation  of  the  New  York  city 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  October  2,  Lewis  Tappan  writes  : 


*  "  Life  of  Arthur  Tappan,"  p.  168.  The  honor  of  causing  the  forma 
tion  of  this  society  is  claimed  for  Mr.  Garrison  by  his  sons  on  the  ground 
that,  on  the  eve  of  sailing  for  England,  May  2,  he  directed  it.  "  It  must 
be  organized,  he  said,  and  his  words  gave  the  needed  resolution."  (G.,  i, 
346.)  The  authority  for  this  claim  is  given  in  a  foot-note,  "  Related  by 
William  Green  in  1880."  As  the  supposed  order  lay  five  months  with 
out  execution  and  forty  seven  years  without  being  testified  to,  it  can  not 
be  taken  against  Lewis  Tappan's  plain  statement ;  nor  was  this  claim 
intimated  at  the  time  by  Mr.  Garrison,  though  in  October,  1833,  he  no 
ticed  the  formation  of  the  New  York  city  Anti-Slavery  Society  several 
times  in  his  paper  and  copied  its  constitution  in  part.  The  Tappans, 
Leavitt,  Isaac  T.  Hopper,  Wright,  Goodell,  and  others  who  did  form  that 
society  were  men  of  undaunted  courage,  and  the  inuendo  that  in  the  pre 
ceding  May  they  were  hesitating  to  act  because  "  of  a  hostile  and  lawless 
public  sentiment"  (G.,  5,  346)  is  unjust  to  them.  Imagine  Isaac  T.  Hop 
per,  the  lion-hearted,  charged  with  timidity  ! 


APPENDIX  C. 

"  Shortly  afterward  Mr.  Tappan  met  with  a  few  friends  to 
consider  the  propriety  of  issuing  a  call  for  an  anti-slavery  con 
vention  to  form  a  national  society."  ("Life  of  Arthur  Tappan," 
page  175.) 

An  unsigned  circular,  nearly  a  newspaper  column  in  length, 
written,  it  is  said,  by  Joshua  Leavitt  and  Lewis  Tappan,  and  set 
ting  forth  the  reasons  for  such  a  step,  was  published  in  the  first 
week  of  October.  It  mentioned  neither  time  nor  place,  being 
intended  to  elicit  expressions  of  opinion  by  societies,  news 
papers,  and  individuals.  These  were  favorable.  The  time  was 
come. 

The  call  was  issued  under  the  auspices  of  the  New  York  city 
Anti-Slavery  Society  on  the  29th  of  October.  It  was  signed  by 
Arthur  Tappan,  President,  Joshua  Leavitt,  one  of  the  managers, 
and  Elizur  Wright,  Jr. ,  Secretary,  and  was  published  in  the  anti- 
slavery  newspapers,  while  letters  were  addressed  to  friendly  in 
dividuals  in  different  parts  of  the  country  inviting  their  attend 
ance. 

In  the  first  paragraph  of  the  official  report  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  convention,  made  out  by  Lewis  Tappan  and  John  G. 
Whittier,  secretaries,  the  statement  is  made  that  the  delegates 
and  other  friends  of  emancipation  had  convened  at  Philadelphia 
"  on  the  fourth  day  of  December,  Anno  Domini,  1833,  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  national  anti-slavery  society  pursuant  to  an 
invitation  from  the  New  York  city  Anti- Slavery  Society.'1'' 

The  official  report  of  the  "roll  of  the  convention"  shows 
names  *  as  follows  :  From  Maine,  5  ;  New  Hampshire,  1  ;  Ver 
mont,  1  ;  Massachusetts,  12  ;  Rhode  Island,  3  ;  Connecticut,  5  ; 
New  York,  9  ;  New  Jersey,  3  ;  Pennsylvania,  22  ;  and  Ohio,  3. 
From  ten  States,  total,  64.  Of  the  members,  three  were  colored 
men — Purvis,  Barbadoes,  and  McCrummell.  The  religious  ele 
ment  was  largely  predominant,  if  it  did  not  absorb  all  others. 

*  Sixty-two  names  are  signed  to  the  Declaration  of  Sentiments,  as 
published  in  the  "Proceedings  of  the  Second  Decade  Meeting  "  (1853), 
p.  169.  Of  these,  three  (Daniel  S.  Southmayd,  George  Bourne,  and  James 
Mott)  do  not  appear  on  the  official  roll,  and  six  that  do  appear  on  the 
roll  are  wanting,  to  wit,  Thomas  Shipley,  Peter  Wright,  Isaac  Barton, 
Eclv.in  Fussell,  Sumner  Stebbins,  and  W.  II.  Johnson. 


418  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

There  were  at  least  twenty-one  Presbyterians  or  Congregational- 
ists,  of  whom  six  were  preachers  (not  counting  George  Bourne, 
who  was  not  present  at  the  convention),  nineteen  Quakers,  and 
one  Unitarian  preacher  (S.  J.  May).  It  is  probable  that  every 
person  present  was  a  member  of  some  religious  denomination 
except  Mr.  Garrison.  He  wTas  not.  (G.,  i,  56.)  Every  one  of 
the  seven  preachers  and  a  dozen  or  more  of  the  others,  it  is  be 
lieved,  were  platform  speakers,  and  some  of  them  were  distin 
guished  as  such.  There  was  not  a  single  statesman  or  man  of 
experience  in  public  affairs.  There  were  merchants,  theological 
students,  a  college  president,  an  ex-professor,  and  a  poet.  It 
was  an  assembly  of  remarkably  intelligent  and  sensible  men  who 
were  without  experience  in  practical  politics  and  whose  bias  was 
to  give  undue  prominence  to  the  religious  aspect  of  the  anti- 
slavery  movement. 

The  dominating  influence  was  that  of  the  Tappans,  John  Ran- 
kin,  William  Goodell,  Beriah  Green,  and  Elizur  Wright.  Ar 
thur  Tappan  had  counseled  great  discretion,  and  Judge  William 
Jay,  the  only  statesman  at  that  time  identified  with  them,  had 
written  urging  them  to  make  an  explicit  declaration  of  sound 
political  principles.  (See  page  134  of  "Third  Decade  Proceed 
ings.")  The  charges  generally  brought  against  the  abolitionists 
were  that  they  advocated — 

1.  Violation  of  the  national  Constitution  ; 

2.  Dissolution  of  the  Union  ; 

3.  The  right  of  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States  ; 
and 

4.  Insurrection  of  the  slaves. 

To  meet  these  charges  three  distinct  propositions  were  incor 
porated  into  the  constitution  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  viz. : 

1.  That  each  State  in  which  slavery  exists  has  by  the  United 
States  Constitution  the  exclusive  right  to  legislate  in  regard  to 
its  abolition  in  said  State. 

2.  That  the  society  would  endeavor  in  a  constitutional  way 
to  influence  Congress  to  prohibit  the  interstate  slave  trade,  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  Territories  and  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  to  prevent  the  extension  of  it  to  any  State  that  might  be  ad 
mitted  to  the  Union. 


APPENDIX  C.  419 

3.  That  it  would  not  countenance  any  insurrection  of  slaves. 

The  constitution  is  an  instrument  in  ten  articles,  preceded  by 
an  elaborate  preamble.  It  covers  three  and  a  quarter  pages  of 
the  official  pamphlet  report.  The  fact  that  it  was  reported  at 
the  first  session  of  the  convention  and  promptly  adopted  without 
amendment  indicates  previous  and  careful  preparation.  Tradi 
tion  says  that  it  had  been  drafted  by  Judge  Jay.  The  doctrine 
of  immediate  *  emancipation  is  contained  in  the  preamble. 

The  criticism  of  more  than  half  a  century  has  failed  to  detect 
a  flaw  in  this  admirable  instrument.  The  doctrines  of  consti 
tutional  law  embodied  in  it  were  reiterated  by  the  anti-slavery 
men  in  all  the  stages  of  their  grand  struggle  as  a  Liberty  party 
in  1840  and  1844,  a  Free  Soil  party  in  1848,  and  a  Republican 

*  The  expediency  of  taking  this  position  is  well  set  forth  in  the  fol 
lowing  letter  to  Dr.  E.  P.  Atlee,  written  twenty  days  after  the  convention 
adjourned.  The  original  lies  before  me : 

"NEW  YORK,  26  Dec.,  1833. 

"  Mr  DEAR  SIR  :  Illness  has  prevented  an  earlier  reply  to  your  es 
teemed  favor  of  the  1 1th  inst.  I  have  read  your  letter  once  and  again, 
and  it  has  been  read  in  the  executive  committee. 

"  We  differ  with  you  in  opinion  that  it  is  incumbent  on  us  to  present 
a  specific  plan  for  the  government  of  emancipated  slaves  or  that  it  is  ad 
visable  to  recommend  the  separation  of  a  territory  exclusively  for  that 
class  of  our  fellow-citizens.  The  moment  we  offer  a  plan  objections  will 
be  made  to  it  by  those  who  are  in  favor  of  perpetual  slavery  (and  they 
are  not  a  few),  and  the  minds  of  the  community  will  be  turned  off  from 
the  great  duty  of  emancipation  to  altercations  about  the  mode  in  which 
it  shall  take  place  and  the  measures  to  be  taken  in  consequence.  By 
presenting  any  specific  plan,  we  pledge  ourselves  to  it  when  time  might 
unfold  a  better  plan  which  we  could  not  advocate  without  a  charge  of  in 
consistency.  If  we  recommend  a  separate  territory  we  admit  that  a  re 
moval  of  the  colored  (people)  is  expedient,  a  doctrine  we  have  over  and 
again  denied.  Thus  we  aid  the  argument  of  colonization  and  introduce 
division  into  our  own  ranks. 

"By  advocating  simply  the  doctrine  of  emancipation  we  move  on 
with  united  hearts  ;  but  whenever  we  propose  plans  of  subsequent  meas 
ures  we  produce  division.  .  .  .  These  are  the  reasons,  so  far  as  I  think 
of  them,  that  seem  to  oppose  the  design  you  have  suggested.  Perhaps 
on  further  reflection  they  will  have  weight  on  your  mind.  .  .  . 

"  Very  truly  yours,  LEWIS  TAPPAN." 


420  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

party  in  1856  ;  and  they  were  finally  adopted  by  the  nation  in  the 
election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  presidency  on  a  platform 
containing  them. 

After  the  convention  had  adopted  the  constitution  and  elected 
its  officers,  and  at  the  close  of  its  first  day's  session,  a  motion  was 
made  to  appoint  a  committee  to  draw  up  for  the  signature  of 
members  a  declaration  of  principles  of  the  society.  This  had  not 
been  in  the  regular  programme  of  intended  proceedings ;  but  as  it 
was  understood  that  Mr.  Garrison  had  prepared  one  a  committee 
of  ten,  including  him,  was  appointed.  Dr.  Atlee  was  chairman, 
and  Elizur  Wright,  John  G.  Whittier,  and  William  Goodell,  were 
members.  The  first  draft  was  rejected.  Another  was  prepared 
during  the  night  by  Mr.  Garrison.  This  was  amended  first  by  a 
sub-committee,  then  by  the  committee  of  ten,  and  finally  by  the 
convention  in  committee  of  the  whole.  Naturally  enough  it 
bears  traces  of  hasty  preparation,  and  also  of  its  mixed  author 
ship.  In  more  than  one  instance  the  wrong  word  is  used,  or  a 
passage  inserted  out  of  its  proper  place.  The  recapitulation  of 
divers  human  measures  to  secure  success  is  followed,  oddly 
enough,  by  our  "  trust  for  victory  is  solely  in  God."  The  style  is 
partly  terse  and  partly  turgid  ;  the  imitation  of  the  literary  form 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  is  in  bad  taste  ;  and  the 
statement  of  doctrines  of  constitutional  law,  though  embracing 
those  already  adopted  by  the  society,  is  more  rhetorical  than  pre 
cise.*  Why  six  members  of  the  convention  did  not  sign  the  dec 
laration  does  not  appear.  With  its  obvious  faults  it  was  a  noble 
document  as  finally  adopted.  The  following  sentence,  though 
open  to  verbal  criticism,  was  worthy  of  a  place  as  a  motto  at  the 
head  of  every  anti-slavery  paper  in  the  country  :  ' '  We  also  main 
tain  that  there  are,  at  the  present  time,  the  highest  obligations 
resting  upon  the  people  of  the  free  States,  to  remove  slavery  by 
moral  and  political  action,  as  prescribed  in  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States." 

Of  this  declaration  Mr.  Garrison  said  at  the  third  decade 
meeting  ("Proceedings,"  etc.,  page  22),  "It  is  a  collection  of 
the  merest  truisms."  Some  of  his  friends,  attributing  to  him 

*  The  right  of  the  National  Government  to  suppress  a  slave  insurrec 
tion  by  proclaiming  freedom  might  have  been  mentioned. 


APPENDIX  C.  421 

the  exclusive  authorship,  exaggerate  its  merits,  and  the  truth 
seems  to  lie  about  half-way  between  the  two.  In  the  same 
speech  he  says  :  "  The  result"  (of  the  adoption  and  signing  of 
the  declaration)  ' '  was  the  immediate  formation  of  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  which,"  etc. 

This  is  a  mistake  ;  the  official  record  shows  that  the  society 
was  formed  and  the  officers  elected  Wednesday,  and  that  the 
declaration  was  not  reported  until  Thursday,  the  5th.  S.  J. 
May,  in  his  "Recollections,"  (page  88),  says  it  was  reported  in 
the  afternoon  of  Thursday  and  signed  on  Friday.  The  American 
Anti- Slavery  Society  had  then  been  in  existence  two  days. 

The  officers  chosen  were  Arthur  Tappan,  President  ;  twenty- 
six  vice-presidents,  representing  ten  States  ;  Elizur  Wright  (New 
York),  Secretary  of  Domestic  Correspondence  ;  W.  L.  Garrison,* 
Secretary  of  Foreign  Correspondence  ;  Abraham  L.  Cox  (New 
York),  Recording  Secretary  ;  W.  Green  (New  York),  Treasurer  ; 
and  seventy-two  managers,  representing  ten  States. 

*  Mr.  Garrison  was  at  once  placed  by  the  executive  committee  under 
the  "vexatious  restriction  "  of  submitting  to  it  for  approval  all  his  official 
letters  before  sending  them.  He  resigned  the  same  month  or  early  in 
January.  His  friend  R.  B.  Hall,  who  was  a  member  of  the  convention, 
wrote  to  him  January  21,  1634,  upon  hearing  of  his  resignation  :  "I  will 
give  you  succinctly  the  history  of  that  office.  When  the  committee  to 
form  a  constitution  at  Mr.  Sharpless's  were  about  to  retire,  I  had  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  form  of  constitution  which  they  had  in  their  hands 
provided  but  one  secretary  to  the  society.  I  knew,  too,  what  was  to  be 
the  management  about  that  office,  that  Mr.  Wright  icas  to  fill  it,  and  thus 
be  the  mouth  of  all  anti-slavery  men  in  the  United  States.  This  did  not 
exactly  suit  me.  I  knew  your  claims.  I  knew,  too,  that  you  would  be 
placed  on  the  board  of  managers  or  as  vice-president — in  other  words, 
would  be  second  fiddle — and  this  did  not  suit  me.  I  laid  hold  on  the  com 
mittee,  and  urged  and  entreated  them  to  create  the  office  to  which  you 
were  subsequently  appointed."  .  .  .  (G.  i,  415). 

Mr.  Hall's  testimony  shows  that  the  men  who  framed  the  constitution 
and  formed  the  society  had  no  intention  to  put  Mr.  Garrison  into  any  im 
portant  position.  They  yielded  to  Mr.  Hall's  insistence,  but  the  "vexa 
tious  restriction"  immediately  imposed  on  him  as  secretary  shows  they 
were  determined  that  Mr.  Garrison  should  not  only  play  "  second  fiddle," 
but  no  tunes  except  of  their  choosing. 


422  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

The  convention  adjourned  on  December  6th,  and  the  National 
Society  entered  at  once  upon  its  wonderful  career  of  agitation. 
Arthur  Tappan  made  an  annual  subscription  of  three  thousand 
dollars  * ;  John  Rankin,  the  New  York  merchant,  one  of  twelve 
hundred  ;  and  each  paid  in  promptly  the  first  installment.  Other 
parties  subscribed  and  paid  smaller  amounts.  Men  like  William 
Jay  were  pleased  with  the  conservative  and  law-abiding  character 
of  the  society,  and  gave  it  earnest  support.  Up  to  the  date  of  its 
disruption,  in  1840,  the  activity  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  was  unparalleled  among  the  reformatory  associations  of 
the  United  States. 

*  This  was  increased  in  1835  to  five  thousand  dollars. 


APPENDIX   D. 

To  COLONEL  STONE — 

SIR  :  A  few  days  since  I  was  told  by  a  friend  that  he  had 
read  in  the  New  York  "  Spectator,"  of  which  you  are  the  editor, 
this  assertion  :  "  Mr.  Birney  is  not  the  only  brawler  who  has  sold 
his  slaves  and  turned  abolitionist."  He  had  not  the  paper  with 
him,  but  he  assured  me  that  I  might  rely  on  the  substantial  accu 
racy  of  the  words  as  above  quoted.  The  accusation  it  involves 
is  a  serious  one  to  myself  individually,  and  may,  if  unanswered, 
have  an  injurious  influence  on  the  cause  of  human  liberty,  in 
which,  with  many  others  much  more  distinguished  than  myself, 
I  am  employing  the  humble  powers  with  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  endow  me.  It  is  only  in  the  latter  view — for,  as  to  my 
self,  I  believe  I  could  bear  patiently  the  wrong  you  have  incau 
tiously  inflicted — that  I  have  thought  it  proper  to  transmit  to 
you  for  publication  the  following  statement,  which  I  ought  not 
to  doubt,  from  your  Christian  profession,  you  will  take  pleasure 
in  laying  before  the  public  through  the  same  medium  you  used 
in  acquainting  them  with  your  accusation. 

At  the  time  (1818)  I  determined  to  remove  from  Kentucky  to 
Alabama.  I  was  the  holder  of  a  few  slaves,  principally  domes 
tics  or  house-servants,  given  to  me  by  my  grandfather,  my  father, 
and  the  father  of  Mrs.  Birney.  Intending  to  engage  in  planting, 
I  sold  nearly  all  my  property  in  Kentucky  with  the  view  of  in 
vesting  the  proceeds  in  slaves  and  land  in  the  South.  Including 
those  obtained  by  purchase  and  those  already  mentioned,  I  had 
on  my  settlement  in  Alabama  as  a  planter,  as  nearly  as  I  can  now 
remember,  about  thirty.  Two  or  three  years  afterward  I  received 
from  my  father  Jive  more. 

My  habits  at  this  period  of  my  life  tended  more  to  the  dissipa 
tion  than  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  In  a  few  years  my  circum- 


424  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

stances  became  embarrassed,  though  not  insolvent,  and  I  found 
it  necessary  to  resume  the  practice  of  the  law,  which  from  the 
time  of  my  removal  to  Alabama  I  had  relinquished.  It  became 
necessary,  also,  in  order  to  meet  my  responsibilities  and  preserve 
my  credit,  that  I  should  sell  my  land  and  slaves.  Before  making 
any  contract  for  the  sale  of  the  slaves  I  informed  them  of  my 
situation,  and  consulted  their  wishes  in  their  selection  of  a  pur 
chaser.  They  had  less  aversion  to  being  sold  than  they  would 
formerly  have  had,  because  I  had  found  it  necessary  to  the  prose 
cution  of  my  professional  pursuits  to  remove  from  my  plantation 
to  Huntsville,  sixteen  miles  distant,  thus  leaving  them  for  the 
last  year  entirely  in  the  charge  of  an  overseer.  In  the  sale  I  made 
a  short  time  afterward  to  a  planter  whose  land  adjoined  mine, 
and  whose  character  as  a  humane  master  was  wTell  known  to  my 
slaves,  I  reserved  my  domestic  servants,  five  in  number,  a  man, 
his  wife,  and  their  three  children.  This  sale  was  made  in  1824, 
at  a  time  when  my  opinions  on  the  subject  of  slave-holding  did 
not  materially  differ  from  those  which  prevailed  among  the  gen 
erality  of  planters.  My  religious  profession  and  connection  with 
the  Church  took  place  in  the  spring  of  1826. 

For  several  years  I  had  no  other  slaves  than  the  five  I  have 
mentioned  as  domestics.  In  the  autumn  of  1829,  an  elderly  man 
and  his  wife,  held  by  an  innkeeper  at  whose  house  I  usually 
boarded  while  attending  a  neighboring  court,  became  solicitous 
that  I  should  buy  them.  The  innkeeper  was  addicted  to  fits  of 
"intemperance,  and  while  they  were  on  him  he  would  compel  the 
old  negro  to  amuse  him  by  exercising  his  skill — acquired  in  his 
younger  days — in  playing  vulgar  tunes  on  the  fiddle.  The  old 
man  being  a  member  of  the  Methodist  Church,  and  an  occasional 
exhorter,  considered  his  participation  in  such  things  as  incon 
sistent  with  his  religious  station,  and  felt  the  necessity  under 
which  he  was  placed  as  a  great  grievance.  This,  in  addition  to 
other  reasons,  induced  me  to  purchase  him  and  his  wife  at  the 
price  set  on  them  by  the  innkeeper.  They  were  not  very  long 
in  my  possession  till  the  husband  found  in  Huntsville  an  old  ac 
quaintance  in  a  gentleman  who  was  about  removing  from  Hunts 
ville  to  the  neighborhood  of  Louisville  in  Kentucky.  They 
expressed  a  desire  to  remove  with  him,  on  account,  as  they 
stated,  of  their  being  thus  brought  into  the  neighborhood  of 


APPENDIX   D.  425 

some  of  their  friends  and  relatives  who  resided  near  Louisville. 
They  persuaded  the  gentleman  to  offer  for  them  the  same  price  I 
had  given,  though  it  was  not  all  to  be  paid  in  cash,  as  I  had  paid 
it.  A  part  of  it  was  to  be  paid  in  furniture,  for  which  I  had  no 
pressing  necessity.  However,  this  was  made  no  impediment  to 
the  accomplishment  of  their  wishes,  though  they  would  doubt 
less  have  brought  much  more  had  they  been  set  up  for  sale  to  the 
highest  bidder. 

Up  to  1831  my  professional  business  had  been  profitable,  and 
my  pecuniary  means  had  again  begun  to  accumulate.  I  deter 
mined  to  expend  them,  together  with  a  gift  of  monej7 1  had  re 
ceived  from  my  father  about  this  time,  in  the  establishment  of  a 
sfoc£-farm,  because  it  could  be  conducted  with  comparatively  few 
slaves.  To  this  end  I  bought,  partly  from  an  individual  and 
partly  from  the  Government,  several  hundred  acres  of  cheap 
land.  In  November  of  that  year  I  bought  from  a  Tennesseean 
a  negro  woman  with  her  child,  a  little  girl  about  four  years  old. 
Before  I  had  made  any  other  purchases  of  slaves,  a  lady  in  Hunts- 
ville,  who  had  secured  to  her  several  slaves,  proposed  to  me, 
through  her  husband,  to  pledge  to  me  two  of  them  for  a  sum  of 
money  of  which  he  stood  in  need.  The  sum  to  be  advanced 
was  supposed  to  be  their  value,  taking  into  the  estimate  the  risk 
of  their  lives  during  the  time  the  money  should  be  retained.  I 
acceded  to  the  proposition,  took  into  my  use  the  two  slaves,  and 
kept  them  on  this  contract  till  within  a  short  time  of  my  removal 
to  Kentucky,  in  the  autumn  of  1833.  The  money  was  then  re 
turned  and  the  slaves  redelivered  to  the  lady.  In  the  beginning 
of  1833  I  hired  from  an  administrator  for  that  year  five  slaves,  a 
man,  his  wife,  and  their  three  children.  They  remained  on  my 
farm  till  I  was  about  leaving  Alabama,  At  the  proper  time  they 
were  delivered  up  to  the  gentleman  from  whom  they  were  hired. 
These  circumstances  in  relation  to  the  pledged  and  hired  slaves 
are  mentioned  to  correct  misrepresentations  that  have  been  fre 
quently  made  at  the  North  by  some  of  my  Southern  acquaint 
ances  as  to  the  extent  of  my  connection  with  slavery  at  the  time 
I  prepared  to  remove  from  Alabama.  They  have  represented  me 
as  holding  slaves  to  some  considerable  extent,  and  as  selling  all 
or  nearly  all  of  them  in  order  to  avoid  loss  in  my  conversion  to 
abolitionism.  These  misstatements  have  doubtless  been  often 


426  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

made  inconsiderately  and  ignorantly  by  those  who  would  do 
more  to  injure  the  cause  of  emancipation  than  they  would  to  in 
jure  me.  Yet  in  a  few  instances,  if  my  information  be  correct, 
they  have  been  made  by  persons  whose  knowledge  of  my  circum 
stances  at  that  time  takes  away  every  excuse  which  charity  can 
plead  for  them  on  the  ground  of  ignorance. 

At  this  time,  the  autumn  of  1833,  I  held  as  slaves  the  woman 
and  child  above  mentioned  and  five  house-servants.  I  was  then, 
and  had  been  more  than  a  year  before,  the  agent  and  advocate  of 
the  American  Colonization  Society.  I  do  not  now  remember  that 
my  views  as  to  the  right  of  the  slave  to  his  liberty  and  the  duty 
of  the  master  to  emancipate  were  much  in  advance  of  those  usu 
ally  entertained  by  colonizationists.  Certain  it  is  I  looked  for 
ward  to  no  time,  I  anticipated  no  circumstances  which  would 
ever  bring  me  to  consider  them  as  I  now  do.  I  had  then  no  ex 
pectation  that  I  should  at  any  period  of  my  life  deserve  the  name 
of  an  abolitionist  or  draw  on  me  persecutions  of  sufficient  rigor 
to  banish  me  from  Kentucky,  where  I  was  born — persecutions 
from  which  the  constitutional  aegis  of  the  free  State  of  Ohio  have 
not  yet  availed  to  defend  me. 

Before  breaking  up  my  establishment  in  Alabama,  I  proposed 
to  the  woman  to  send  her  and  her  child  to  Liberia,  after  she  had, 
by  the  services  she  had  already  performed  and  by  her  future  hire, 
returned  me  the  price  I  had  paid  for  her.  She  objected  utterly 
to  going  to  Liberia.  I  then  proposed  to  bring  her  with  me  to 
Kentucky,  where,  after  being  remunerated  by  her  services  for 
the  sum  I  had  paid  for  her,  I  would  manumit  her  and  her  child 
without  any  condition  of  removal,  in  the  mean  time  giving  to 
the  child  such  education  as  I  could  under  existing  circumstances. 
To  this,  so  far  as  she  herself  was  concerned,  to  my  great  surprise, 
she  objected,  urging  that  she  was  an  entire  stranger  in  Kentucky, 
and  that  she  did  not  wish  to  leave  the  acquaintances  she  had 
made  since  her  residence  in  Alabama.  Believing  her  conduct  to 
be  altogether  injudicious,  I  said  to  her,  that  while  I  felt  no  de 
sire  to  compel  her  to  either  of  the  courses  I  had  proposed,  I  could 
not  permit  her  to  make  for  the  child  the  election  of  remaining 
behind.  So  far  from  being  displeased  with  this  she  expressed 
her  full  concurrence,  saying  she  knew  her  child  would  be  well  taken 
care  of,  and  every  provision  made  for  her  that  could  he  expected. 


APPENDIX  D.  427 

She  preferred  being  sold  to  being  hired,  on  account  of  the  better 
treatment  she  would  receive  from  a  master  than  from  a  hirer.  I 
permitted  her  to  select  her  own  master,  and  in  order  that  she 
might  have  no  difficulty  in  inducing  such  a  one  as  she  might 
select  to  purchase  her,  I  put  her  price  at  eighty -five  dollars  less 
than  I  had  given  for  her  and  her  child.  The  advance  on  the 
price  of  negroes  at  this  time  would  have  enabled  me  to  have  sold 
her  alone  at  public  sale  for  from  seventy-five  to  one  hundred  dol 
lars  more  than  the  sum  I  asked.  The  gentleman  whom  she  se 
lected,  and  of  whose  character  for  humanity  to  his  slaves  I  had 
received,  on  inquiry,  satisfactory  assurances,  purchased  her  with 
out  hesitation.  I  was  not  informed  of  the  reasons  for  her  con 
duct — so  singular,  as  it  appeared  to  me — till  she  had  rejected 
both  my  propositions  leading  to  her  ultimate  manumission.  I 
was  afterward  told  by  my  overseer,  who  was  warmly  attached  to 
my  interests,  and  who,  I  believe,  thought  that  I  was  already 
somewhat  fanatical  in  my  desire  to  oblige  the  woman  who 
wanted  me  to  sell  her,  believing  if  I  took  her  to  Kentucky  I 
would  finally  emancipate  her,  that  her  conduct  proceeded  from 
an  attachment  she  had  formed  for  a  negro  man  who,  he  sup 
posed,  had  persuaded  her  to  object  to  every  proposition  which 
contemplated  her  removal  from  that  part  of  the  country.  The 
little  girl,  her  child,  I  brought  with  me,  together  with  the  do 
mestic  servants  already  mentioned,  to  Kentucky  in  1883. 

I  had  already  lost  much  of  my  first  confidence  in  the  efficacy 
of  colonization  principles  for  the  extirpation  of  slavery  among 
us.  I  assisted,  in  December,  1833,  in  the  organization  at  Lexing 
ton  of  a  gradual  emancipation  society,  thinking  its  principles 
were  somewhat  stronger  than  those  of  colonization  and  would  be 
more  effectual.  I  entered  on  this  scheme  with  ardor  and  became 
its  active  advocate.  A  short  trial  of  it  soon  convinced  me  of  its 
inefficacy  to  move  the  hearts  of  men.  During  this  winter  and 
the  ensuing  spring  my  mind  was  deeply  interested  in  the  whole 
subject  of  slavery.  I  read  almost  every  work  I  could  lay  my 
hands  on  ;  I  talked  much  of  it  in  public  and  in  private.  In  the 
month  of  May,  1834,  I  became  so  fully  convinced  of  the  right  of 
my  slaves  to  their  freedom  and  of  my  duty  as  a  Christian  to  give 
it  to  them  that  I  prepared,  as  well  as  I  now  remember,  on  the 
first  day  of  June,  a  deed  of  emancipation  for  the  six  I  brought 


428  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

with  me  from  Alabama  and  had  it  duly  entered  of  record  in  the 
office  of  the  county  court  of  the  county  in  which  I  lived.  They 
all  remained  with  me,  receiving  such  wages,  with  the  exception 
of  the  little  girl,  as  were  customary  in  the  country. 

In  the  previous  month  of  January  or  February,  a  young  negro 
man  held  by  the  executors  of  the  late  Judge  Boyle,  of  Kentucky, 
earnestly  solicited  me  to  buy  him  lest  at  the  sale  of  the  estate  he 
might  be  sold  to  some  person  of  whose  character  and  temper  he 
knew  nothing.  At  first  I  objected  on  the  ground  that  I  intended 
never  again  to  purchase  a  slave  to  be  held  in  the  absolute  sense. 
lie  left  me,  but  returned  again,  bringing  as  an  aid  to  his  own 
importunity  the  recommendation  of  the  brother-in-law  of  Judge 
Boyle,  who  held  as  slaves  some  other  members  of  the  family. 
He  prevailed  on  this  second  application,  and  I  paid  the  price  of 
him  to  the  executors.  Before  I  consented  to  do  so  we  had  this 
understanding,  that,  so  soon  as  by  the  allowance  of  fair  wages  he 
should  return  me  the  money  I  had  advanced  he  should  go  free  ; 
that  in  the  mean  time  I  would  have  taught  him  to  read,  and,  if 
he  proved  apt  to  learn,  writing  and  the  elementary  rules  of  arith 
metic  ;  that  I  would  ask  of  him  no  unreasonable  services,  but 
that  if  he  should  fail  to  perform  with  fidelity  what  I  required  of 
him  I  should  return  him  to  the  state  of  absolute  slavery  from 
which  I  considered  I  was  taking  him.  It  was  but  a  short  time 
before  I  became  satisfied  that  his  character  had  been  grossly, 
though  I  will  not  suffer  myself  to  think  intentionally,  misrepre 
sented  to  me.  He  proved  trifling,  lazy,  and  troublesome  among 
the  rest  of  my  servants.  Especially  provoking  to  me  was  his  re 
iterated  harsh  treatment  of  the  little  girl  above  mentioned,  for 
whom,  as  she  had  no  relative  near  her,  I  felt  almost  a  parental 
tenderness.  After  bearing  with  him  for  several  months,  and 
often  persuading  and  admonishing  him,  I  found  it  was  out  of 
the  question  to  keep  him  about  me  any  longer.  In  the  month 
of  July,  I  think  it  was,  I  gave  him  a  writing  authorizing  him  to 
obtain  for  his  master  any  one  who  would  give  me  within  one 
hundred  dollars  of  the  price  I  had  paid  for  him,  although  I 
think  it  probable  had  I  offered  him  for  the  highest  price  without 
regard  to  the  character  of  the  purchaser  I  might  have  received 
for  him  one  hundred  dollars  more  than  I  gave.  It  turned  out 
that  the  gentleman  who  had  unwarily  recommended  him  to  me 


APPENDIX  D.  429 

offered  to  become  the  purchaser  if  I  would  grant  a  longer  credit 
for  part  of  the  sum  than  I  had  proposed  in  my  written  note.  To 
this  I  assented.  The  same  gentleman  had  a  short  time  previous 
become  the  owner  by  purchase  of  the  farm  belonging  to  the  es 
tate  of  Judge  Boyle,  so  that  the  young  man  was  returned  to  the 
very  place  from  which  I  had  taken  him.  Before  the  last  pay 
ment  fell  due  I  became  convinced,  notwithstanding  what  I  had 
done  was  nothing  more  than  a  literal  execution  of  the  arrange 
ment  to  which  he  had  assented  (if  such  a  thing  can  be  predicated 
of  a  slave),  that  I  had  done  wrong  in  selling  him.  I  wrote  to 
the  gentleman  who  had  bought  him  that  I  wished  to  repurchase 
the  slave  that  I  might  give  him  his  freedom.  His  reply  informed 
me  that  he  was  out  of  his  power,  as  he  had  sent  him  down  the 
Mississippi  with  a  Southern  planter.  This  case  has  given  me 
more  uneasiness  of  mind  than  any  of  the  others.  While  most 
persons  under  the  same  pressure  of  influences  which  was  then 
bearing  on  me  would  probably  have  acted  as  I  did,  yet  do  I  not 
seek  to  justify  it.  The  influences  which  warped  and  obscured 
my  moral  vision  I  ought  to  have  resisted. 

The  above  statement  shows  my  connection  with  slavery  for 
nearly  twenty  years.  There  has  been  no  concealment  or  sup 
pression  on  my  part  of  any  of  the  facts  since  I  have  become  an 
abolitionist.  I  have  often  repeated  them  to  friends  who  have  in 
quired  concerning  them.  The  enemies  of  abolition  have  often 
perverted  or  misunderstood  them  and  trumpeted  them  to  the 
world  in  a  manner  not  unlike  that  which  it  has  pleased  you  to 
adopt.  I  should  have  published  them  in  the  journals  of  the 
country  had  I  not  thought  it  would  be  impertinent  to  consider 
such  small  matters  as  at  .all  affecting  the  magnificent  and  awful 
cause  which  has  brought  in  opposition  the  friends  of  liberty  and 
the  upholders  of  slavery.  At  present  I  think  differently.  An 
importance  has  been  given  to  my  conduct  which  renders  an  ex 
position  of  it  necessary.  While  God  has  granted  me,  as  I  trust, 
repentance  for  its  errors,  he  has  not  altogether  withheld  from 
me  the  humility  which  can  bear  their  exposure. 

Had  you  been  as  careful  as  it  seems  to  me  you  ought  to  have 
been  before  venturing  so  deadly  an  assault  on  the  reputation  of 
a  Christian  brother,  you  would  either  previously  have  asked  of 
me  if  the  facts  on  ^syhich  it  was  to  proceed  were  true  or  you 


430  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY  AND   HIS  TIMES. 

would  have  given  the  authority  on  which  you  have  made  your 
injurious  accusation.  Hereafter,  sir,  should  you  deem  any  part 
of  my  private  history  worthy  of  publication  through  the  journals 
under  your  control,  I  will  at  your  request,  and  on  my  own  con 
sent  to  its  propriety,  furnish  you  with  statements  which  will 
stand  any  test  your  friends  or  mine  may  choose  to  apply  to  them. 
With  due  respect,  JAMES  G.  BIRNEY. 

CINCINNATI,  May  2,  1836. 


APPENDIX  E. 

THE  facts  alluded  to  in  the  text,  although  well  known  to 
many  of  the  old  inhabitants  of  Indiana  and  Ohio,  have  been  ig 
nored  by  most  of  the  writers  of  abolition  history.  They  possess 
a  value,  however,  that  entitles  them  to  permanent  record.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  they  will  all  be  preserved  in  the  local  annals  of  the 
counties  of  those  States  so  that  the  future  historian  may  trace 
the  strong  currents  of  anti-slavery  opinion  early  in  the  century. 
The  limits  prescribed  to  this  volume  do  not  permit  the  author  to 
group  any  facts  except  a  few  of  those  relating  to  immediate  abo 
litionists  in  the  adjoining  counties  of  Adams,  Brown,  Clermont, 
and  Highland  in  Ohio.  These  will  suffice,  however,  to  throw 
light  on  the  times  treated  of  in  the  text.  An  equally  interesting 
statement  might  perhaps  be  made  in  relation  to  the  county  of 
Belmont,  in  which  in  1815  Lundy  organized  the  Union  Humane 
Society,  an  abolition  organization  that  soon  numbered  five  hun 
dred  members,  to  Jefferson  County,  in  which  in  1817  Charles 
Osborn  published  his  abolition  paper  the  "Philanthropist,"  or 
to  Warren  County  or  Wayne  County  (Indiana),  the  homes  of 
numerous  Quakers,  who  in  early  days  were  stanch  friends  of 
the  slave.  The  author's  selection  is  determined  mainly  by  per 
sonal  knowledge  gained  during  a  long  residence  in  Ohio  of  many 
of  the  facts  and  the  facility  of  ascertaining  the  others  from  reli 
able  persons  and  local  publications. 

Before  1805  the  following  families  had  migrated  from  slave 
States  into  Brown  County  :  The  Ellisons,  the  Shepards,  the 
Campbells,  the  Dunlavys,  and  the  Dunlops.  All  these  were  im 
mediate  abolitionists  and  Presbyterians,  and  with  the  exception 
of  two  individuals  remained  such.  Rev.  Dyer  Burgess,  pne  of 
the  most  noted  abolitionists  in  Ohio  between  1800  and  1840, 
married  a  Miss  Ellison.  He  was  for  about  forty  years  pastor  of 
the  Presbyterian  church  at  West  Union,  Adams  County.  His 


432  JAMES  G,  BIRNEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

sermons  against  slavery  were  uncompromising,  and  for  years  be 
fore  1817  he  had  refused  to  admit  slave-holders  to  the  commun 
ion-table. 

The  Shepards  were  numerous.  The  original  settlers  of  that 
name  had  three  sons — John,  Abraham,  and  Jacob.  The  Rev. 
J.  Dunlavy  from  Virginia  preached  in  Brown  County  against 
slavery  from  1790  to  1805.  There  were  six  Campbells  who  came 
from  Virginia  in  1796.  The  sons  were  Joshua  W.,  Charles,  Jo 
seph  N. ,  and  Samuel — all  men  of  standing. 

William  Dunlop  migrated  from  Fayette  County,  Kentucky, 
to  Brown  County  in  1796,  bringing  a  large  number  of  slaves 
with  him.  He  set  them  free  and  established  them  on  land  about 
three  miles  north  of  Ripley.  When  the  Rev.  John  B.  Mahan 
was  kidnapped  and  taken  to  Kentucky  for  trial  on  the  charge  of 
abducting  slaves,  Mr.  Dunlop  went  on  his  appearance  bond  for 
$1,600  and  paid  the  money  rather  than  have  Mahan  go  back  to 
sure  condemnation. 

Dr.  Alexander  Campbell  (1769-1857)  was  a  native  of  Vir 
ginia  ;  began  the  practice  of  medicine  at  Cynthiana,  Ky. ;  served 
as  representative  in  the  Kentucky  General  Assembly  in  1799- 
1800  ;  favored  a  free  Constitution  ;  removed  to  Ripley,  Ohio,  in 
1803,  taking  with  him  several  slaves  and  giving  them  their  free 
dom  ;  wras  a  member  of  the  Ohio  Legislature  in  1806,  Senator  of 
the  United  States  from  1810  to  1813,  and  State  Senator  for  the 
following  ten  years  ;  and  was  always  an  unwavering  immediate 
abolitionist.  In  1835  he  was  made  the  first  of  twenty-one  vice- 
presidents  of  the  Ohio  Anti-Slavery  Society. 

Thomas  Morris  (1776-1844),  a  Virginian,  removed  to  Ohio  in 
1795,  resided  in  Clermont  County  from  about  1800  to  the  time  of 
his  death,  was  a  member  of  the  Ohio  Legislature  from  1806  to 
1830,  chief  judge  of  Ohio  from  1830  to  1833,  Senator  of  the 
United  States  from  1833  to  1839,  and  during  his  whole  life  a 
sturdy,  uncompromising  immediate  abolitionist.  In  1838  he  re 
fused  to  follow  his  party  in  its  subserviency  to  slavery  and  cut 
loose  from  it,  preferring  to  sacrifice  his  office  to  his  principles. 
His  speech  in  1839  in  opposition  to  Clay's  on  abolition  was  man 
ly  and  able.  In  1840  he  was  nominated  for  Vice-President  by 
the  Anti-Slavery,  then  called  Liberty,  party.  Though  a  Virgin 
ian  he  never  owned  a  slave. 


APPENDIX  E.  433 

Rev.  James  Giililand  (1769-1845)  was  born  and  brought  up 
in  South  Carolina.  His  teacher  in  boyhood  was  the  Rev.  Will 
iam  C.  Davis  of  that  State,  and  from  him  he  learned  to  regard 
slave-holding  as  a  sin.  He  was  graduated  at  Dickinson  College, 
Pennsylvania,  in  1792,  licensed  to  preach  in  1794,  and  ordained 
as  pastor  of  the  Broadway  church  in  1796.  Twelve  members  of 
the  congregation  presented  to  the  presbytery  a  remonstrance 
against  his  ordination,  charging  him  with  preaching  "against 
the  Government."  This  he  denied.  He  admitted,  however, 
that  he  had  preached  against  the  sin  of  slavery  both  before  and 
after  his  call  to  the  Broadway  church.  The  case  was  taken  by 
him  to  the  synod  on  appeal.  A  minute  of  that  body,  at  its  ses 
sion  of  November,  1796,  is  in  these  words  : 

"A  memorial  was  brought  forward  and  laid  before  the  synod 
by  the  Rev.  James  Giililand,  stating  his  conscientious  difficulties  in 
recognizing  the  advice  of  the  Presbytery  of  South  Carolina,  which 
has  enjoined  upon  him  to  be  silent  in  the  pulpit  on  the  subject  of 
the  emancipation  of  the  Africans,  which  injunction  Mr.  Giililand 
declares  to  be  in  his  apprehension  contrary  to  the  counsel  of  God. 
Whereupon  synod,  after  deliberation  upon  the  matter,  do  concur 
with  the  presbytery  in  advising  Mr.  Giililand  to  content  himself 
with  using  his  utmost  endeavors  in  private  to  open  the  way  for 
emancipation  so  as  to  secure  our  happiness  as  a  people,  preserve 
the  peace  of  the  Church,  and  render  them  (the  slaves)  capable  of 
enjoying  the  blessings  of  liberty!  Synod  is  of  the  opinion  that 
to  preach  publicly  against  slavery  in  present  circumstances  and 
to  lay  down  as  the  duty  of  every  one  to  liberate  those  who  are 
under  their  care  is  that  which  would  lead  to  disorder  and  open 
the  way  to  great  confusion. "  (See  4,  Sprague's  ' '  Annals  of  the 
American  Pulpit,"  page  137.) 

Mr.  Giililand  obeyed  the  mandate  of  his  Church  until  1804, 
not  ceasing  meanwhile  his  private  teachings  against  slavery. 
Unable  to  endure  longer  the  restrictions  placed  upon  him,  he  re 
signed  his  pastorship,  took  his  credentials  to  Washington  Pres 
bytery,  and  traveled  West  in  search  of  a  free  pulpit.  Hearing  of 
the  state  of  opinion  in  Browrn  County,  Ohio,  he  went  there  in 
1805,  and  was  the  pastor  of  Red  Oak  church  for  thirty-nine 
years.  During  all  that  time  he  preached  the  doctrine  of  immedi 
ate  abolition  without  dilution.  About  1820  he  published  a  pam- 
20 


431  JAMES  G.  BIRXEY  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

phlet,  setting  it  forth  in  the  form  of  dialogue.  His  church, 
made  up  in  great  part  of  ex-slave-holders  and  immigrants  from 
slave  States,  including  South  Carolina,  adhered  to  him,  and  the 
four  Presbyterian  churches  of  Ripley,  Russellville,  Decatur,  and 
Georgetown,  known  through  Ohio  for  their  stalwart  abolition 
ism,  w^ere  offshoots  from  the  one  at  Red  Oak.  That  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Gilliland,  during  his  whole  term  as  the  pastor  of  Red  Oak, 
often  preached  abolition  and  always  "  immediatism  "  is  a  Brown 
County  tradition,  and  the  fact  would  be  testified  to  by  every  old 
resident.  In  a  letter  to  me  of  May  2,  1884,  one  of  his  sons  writes 
that  his  father  was  preaching  immediate  abolition  before  Gar 
rison  was  born.  Of  the  thirteen  children  of  Mr.  Gilliland  one  is 
a  clergyman  and  two  are  lawyers.  Like  most  abolitionists  of 
Southern  origin  Mr.  Gilliland  was  an  advocate  of  political  action 
against  slavery  and  voted  the  Liberty  party  ticket.  He  was  an 
effective  speaker  and  a  good  man  and  the  membership  of  his 
church  was  large.  From  1805  to  1822  he  was  the  recognized 
abolition  leader  in  southern  Ohio.  In  1835  he  was  placed  second 
on  a  list  of  twenty- one  vice-presidents  of  the  Ohio  Anti- Slavery 
Society. 

In  1806  the  Rev.  William  Williamson  moved  from  South  Caro 
lina  to  Adams  County,  Ohio,  bringing  his  slaves  with  him  and 
emancipating  them.  He  sent  the  younger  ones  to  school  ;  to  two 
of  them  he  gave  a  liberal  education.  One  of  these,  Benjamin 
Templeton,  studied  theology  and  was  licensed  to  preach  by  the 
Chilicothe  Presbytery. 

In  the  same  year  Colonel  Thomas  Means  moved  from  South 
Carolina  to  Adams  County.  He  was  a  man  of  wealth,  had  many 
slaves,  freed  them  all,  taught  them  to  read  and  write,  and  was 
true  as  steel  to  the  cause  of  liberty. 

Thomas  Kirker  left  Kentucky  in  1806  to  escape  the  evils  of 
slavery.  He  settled  in  Adams  County,  and  in  time  became  Gov 
ernor  of  Ohio.  He  and  Messrs.  Williamson  and  Means  were 
members  of  Dyer  Burgess's  church.  Colonel  Means  was  an  elder. 
Governor  Kirker  had  five  sons  :  William,  John,  James,  Thomas, 
and  George.  All  of  them  became  respectable  citizens. 

Rev.  Jesse  Lockhart  migrated  from  Tennessee  to  Brown 
County,  and  was  for  forty  years  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  church 
at  Russellville.  He  was  a  zealous  coadjutor  in  the  anti-slavery 


APPENDIX  E.  435 

work  of  Gilliland,  Williamson,  Dyer  Burgess,  Dr.  Campbell, 
and  others,  up  to  1822,  and  after  that  date  of  those  named  and 
of  Messrs.  Rankin  and  Gilmer.  Under  the  pro-slavery  violence 
of  Jackson's  Administration  he  faced  several  mobs  with  courage. 

In  1810  the  four  McCoys  (John,  William,  George,  and 
James)  were  added  to  the  Brown  County  list  of  heroes,  and  in 
1811  Robert  Miller  came  in  from  Kentucky  with  the  Menaughs, 
John  and  William. 

At  the  very  time  Mr.  Birney  was  opposing  the  Kentucky  As 
sembly  joint  resolutions  for  recaption  of  slaves,  Samuel  Grist,  of 
Virginia,  was  purchasing  two  large  tracts  of  land  in  Brown 
County,  Ohio,  with  a  view  to  making  homes  there  for  one  thou 
sand  slaves.  He  brought  them  on  a  few  months  afterward,  gave 
them  farms,  farming  implements,  and  stock,  superintended  their 
settlement,  and  remained  ever  after  their  fast  friend.  He  be 
came  poor  for  conscience'  sake.  (See  Harrison's  '"History  of 
Ohio,"  page  100.) 

It  would  give  me  pleasure  to  add  accounts  of  the  Hopkinses, 
Salsburys,  Snedigers,  Dickeys,  and  Kirkpatricks,  who  belonged 
to  this  band  of  Christian  workers,  but  my  space  and  plan  will 
not  permit.  All  whose  names  I  have  mentioned  were  immediate 
abolitionists — unmitigated,  pure,  zealous,  and  efficient.  They 
were  ever  ready  to  give  food,  shelter,  and  aid  to  fugitive  slaves, 
and  before  1817  they  had  forwarded  to  Canada,  through  trust 
worthy  friends,  more  than  one  thousand  of  this  wretched  class, 
besides  finding  elsewhere  safe  homes  and  work  for  many  others. 
They  were  all  Presbyterians  and  nearly  all  emigrants  from  slave 
States,  and  the  record  of  their  disinterested  benevolence  is  one 
of  the  noblest  that  belongs  to  the  history  of  Southern  society. 


APPENDIX   F. 

THE  chief  writings  of  Mr.  Birney  were  as  follows  : 

1.  Ten  letters  on  Slavery  and  Colonization,  addressed  to  R.  R. 
Gurley,  the  first  dated  July  1Q,  1832,  the  last  December  11,  1833. 

2.  Six  essays  on  same,  published  in  the  Huntsville,  Ala.,  Ad 
vocate  in  May,  June,  and  July,  1833. 

3.  Letter  on  Colonization,  resigning  vice-presidency  of  Ken 
tucky  Colonization  Society,  July  15,  1834. 

4.  Letter*  to  Presbyterian  Church,  1834. 

5.  Addresses  and  Speeches,  1835. 

6.  Vindication  of  the  Abolitionists,  1835. 

7.  The  Philanthropist,  a  weekly  newspaper,  183G,  and  to  Sep 
tember,  1837. 

/*$.  Letter  to  Colonel  Stone,  May,  1836. 

9.  Address  to  Slave-holders,  October,  1836. 

10.  Argument  on  Fugitive  Slave  Case,  1837. 

11.  Letter  to  F.  H.  Elmorc,  of  South  Carolina,  1838. 

12.  Political  Obligations  of  Abolitionists,  1839. 

13.  Report  on  the  Duty  of  Political  Action,  for  Executive  Com 
mittee  of  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society,  May,  1839. 

14.  American    Churches   the   Bulwarks  of  American   Slavery, 
1840. 

15.  Speeches  in  England,  1840. 

16.  Letter  of  Acceptance. 

17.  Artide^_in  Quarterly  Anti- Slavery  Magazine  and  in  the 
Emancipator,  1837-1844. 

18.  Examination  of  the  Decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  in  the  case  of  Strader  et  al,  vs.  Graham,  1850. 


INDEX. 


Adams,  John  Q.,  64  ;  on  Benton,  68, 
340,  342;  censured  by  Birney, 
343. 

Alabama,  Senate,  Constitutional 
Convention,  37 ;  Constitution, 
38  ;  slaves  freed  by  Legislature, 
39,  44;  repeals  non-importation 
law,  88 ;  professors,  94 ;  non- 
slave  importation,  104. 

Albany  conventions,  347,  350. 

Allen,  Rev.  William,  7,  51;  Dr., 
106. 

Alien  and  sedition  law,  21-23. 

Anti-slavery  books,  26,  334,  Ap 
pendix  A. 

Abolition  by  governments  before 
1830,  160,  228. 

Abolition  papers,  23,  76,  77,  78,  86, 
318,  Appendix  C. 

Abolition  societies,  Kentucky,  23  ; 
Tennessee,  West  Tennessee,  76, 
77 ;  North  Carolina,  78 ;  perish 
in  South,  161;  auxiliary,  334, 
Appendix  C. 

Abolitionism  in  South  before  1820, 
74,  76,  78. 

Abolitionists,  Baptist,  18,  23,  338. 

Abolitionists,  immediate,  before 
1830:  Rev.  David  Rice,  David 
Barrow,  17 ;  Joshua  Carman,  18  ; 


Miami  Association,  18;  sixteen 
Baptist  preachers  in  Kentucky, 
18,  19,  23;  Samuel  Doak,  75; 
Charles  Osborn,  76 ;  John  Ran- 
kin,  76,  386,  Appendix  E ;  Jesse 
Lockhart,  76 ;  one  thirtieth  of 
people  of  Xorth  Carolina,  78, 120, 
note ;  in  Ohio,  164-166, 170,  Ap 
pendixes  C  and  E ;  Baptist,  164 ; 
Crothers,  Gilliland,  Dyer  Burgess, 
Dickey,  168,  170;  Associate 
Reformed  Presbyterian  Church, 
166 ;  Anthony  Benezet,  John 
Woolman,  Benjamin  Lay,  Benja 
min  Rush,  John  Wesley,  383 ; 
George  Buchanan,  Jonathan  Ed 
wards,  Thomas  Branagan,  384 ; 
George  Bourne,  John  Kenrick, 
385;  Morris  Birkbeck,  386;  James 
Duncan,  Edward  Coles,  Elizabeth 
Heyrick,  Miss  Chandler,  Benja 
min  Lundy,  387 ;  Thomas  God 
win,  William  Goodell,  Joshua 
Leavitt,  William  Jay,  and  Chilli- 
cothe  Presbytery,  388. 

Alvord,  James  C.,  340. 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,  283-285. 

Bacon,  Dr.  Leonard  G.,    92,   156, 

378. 


438 


INDEX. 


Blackburn,  Hcv.  Gideon,  147. 

Bailey,  Dr.  Gamaliel,  238. 

Blaine,  James  Gillespie,  364. 

Balance-of-power  party,  346. 

Ballou,  Adin,  287. 

Baltimore,  80. 

Bancroft,  George,  93. 

Baptists,  anti-slavery,  18,  104. 

Barrow,  Rev.  David,  17. 

Beecher,    Catherine,    93 ;    Edward, 
102. 

Breckcnridge,  John,  21,  22. 

Breckenridge,  Joseph    Cabell,    25 ; 
Robert  J.,  99,  101,  148,  186. 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  73,  88. 

Birncy,  James  G.,  birth,  9;  rcla- 
latives,  boyhood,  10  ;  saves  com 
rade,  1 1 ;  studies,  teacher,  and 
school-fellows,  12;  early  anti- 
slavery  influences,  16;  college, 
25;  bar,  30;  freemason,  31; 
councilman,  marriage,  slaves,  32 ; 
stump-speaker,  33  ;  legislator, 
33  ;  votes,  33,  34  ;  opposes  slave- 
catching,  34 ;  removes  to  Ala 
bama,  35  ;  in  Convention,  38  ; 
member  of  Assembly,  40 ;  gets 
counsel  for  slaves,  40 ;  speaks 
against  Gen.  Jackson,  41  ;  goes 
out  of  politics,  41 ;  embarrassed, 
41  ;  expensive  habits,  gaming,  j 
42 ;  quits  cards,  removal  to  j 
Iluntsville,  43;  solicitor,  elected 
by  Legislature,  gives  up  cotton 
planting,  46 ;  builds  house,  gar» 
dening,  social  life,  47  ;  law  prac 
tice,  48 ;  mayor  of  Iluntsville, 
52 ;  public  spirit,  53 ;  joins 
church,  54 ;  attorney  for  Chcre- 
kecs,  55 ;  colonizationist,  gets 
bill  passed  to  prohibit  slave  im 


portation  into  State,  5G  ;  masonic 
circular,  57  ;  alieniates  some  rela 
tives,  58  ;  praises  Governor  Coles, 
59 ;  guardian  of  children,  estab 
lishes  free  school,  sells  home,  60 ; 
buys  town  residence  and  farm,  61 ; 
humanity  to  slaves,  62 ;  opposes 
disunion,  presidential  elector, 
63  ;  speaks  against  extension  of 
slavery,  71 ;  joins  Colonization 
Society,  90 ;  visits  free  States, 
91;  separates  from  Clay,  politi 
cally,  96  ;  purposed  removal  to 
Illinois,  102,  113,  120;  benevo 
lence,  103;  emancipationist,  105- 
110;  Weld's  visit,  105 ;  coloni 
zation  agent,  112  ;  work  on  legis 
latures,  116;  lectures  in  Ten 
nessee  and  Alabama,  118,  119; 
Louisiana,  120;  Natchez  and 
Port  Gibson,  122 ;  disapproves 
hard  names  and  abuse  of  oppo 
nents,  123 ;  sends  one  hundred 
and  fifty  negroes  to  Liberia,  123  ; 
cholera  on  boat,  124  ;  visits  Ken 
tucky,  124  ;  political  action,  124, 
125;  Union  sentiments,  125; 
anti-slavery  essays  in  newspapers, 
125-128;  rhapsodies  of  Garri 
son,  126;  emancipation  practi 
cable  in  Maryland,  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  and  Tennessee,  127, 
129;  Union  in  danger,  128,  129; 
resigns  agency,  129;  removes  to 
Kentucky,  130;  gradual  emanci 
pation  effort,  132-124;  studies 
of  slavery,  134,  135;  adopts  im- 
mediatism,  138;  manumits  slaves, 
139  ;  letter  on  colonization,  141 ; 
visits  Cincinnati,  143;  address 
to  elders  and  ministers,  145; 


INDEX. 


439 


visits  Kentucky  ministers,  146 ;  | 
last  visit  to  H.  Clay,  147;  Mrs. 
Polk,  150;  lyceum  debate,  157; 
visits  Ohio,  speaks  in  four  cities,  j 
no  mobs,  172  ;  at  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  1 74  ;  lectures  in 
New  England,  178;  rebukes  per-  j 
sonalities,  179;  troubles  at  Dan 
ville,    180;    printer   bought   off, 
182;    mob  threatened,  181;  os 
tracized  in  Kentucky,   184-186; 
irrepressible  conflict,  185  ;  "  Phi 
lanthropist,"  208 ;  speaks  to  mob, 
215;    editor,    220;    views,    238; 
chooses  lecturers,  256 ;    editors, 
258  ;  removal  to  New  York,  277 ; 
letter  against  the  no-government 
vagaries,  305 ;   controversy  with 
A.  Stewart,  335;  Elmore  letter, 
336 ;  addresses  legislatures,  339 ; 
influences    elections,    340 ;    cen 
sures  J.  Q.  Adams,  343  ;  favors 
an  independent  party,  346  ;  nomi 
nated,  347,  350,  352 ;  votes  for,  ' 
352  ;   the  Garland  forgery,  354  ; 
his  views,  356;  traits,  357;  sec-  , 
ond  marriage,  358  ;  emancipates  ! 
slaves,  360;    relations  to  Garri-  j 
son,   361,    363  ;   portraits,    363  ;  I 
presiding   officer,  364  ;    on   pro-  ' 
slavery  churches,  368 ;   English  [ 
opinion  of,  369  ;    sayings,   370 ;  \ 
character,  372  ;  hunting  and  fish 
ing,  373,  374;  fall  from  a  horse,  ' 
374 ;  paralysis,  375  ;  withdrawal 
from  public  life,  376;    slanders  ' 
by  the  Garrisons,  376 ;  sons  and  > 
grandson  in  the  Union  army,  379 ; 
death,  381. 

Cooks,  anti-slavery,  134,  135,  Ap 
pendix  A. 


Brownson,  Orestes  A.,  286. 
Boyle,  James,  297. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  5,  66,  70,  161; 

bill  against  freedom  of  the  mails, 

191,  337. 

Chapman,  Mrs.  Maria  W.,  275,  314. 
Carolina,  Xorth,  78. 
Channing,  William  E.,  94  ;  letter  to 

James  G.  Birney,  235. 
Chase,  Salmon  P.,  259,  364,  377. 
Classmates,  25. 
Crawford,  William  H.,  67. 
Clay,  Henry,  5,  21-23,  29,  33,  34, 

57,  66  ;  on  "  solid  South,"  71,  91, 
96,  98 ;  fastens  slavery  on  Ar 
kansas  and  Missouri,  224 ;  slaves 
are   property   speech,   345,  349, 
353. 

Clergy,  296, 300 ;  anti-slavery  senti 
ment  of,  368. 

Christ,  imitations  of  person  of,  323. 
Child,  David  Lee,  327,  328,  354. 
CoflBn,  Levi.  167. 
College  life,  25,  28. 
Coles,  Edward,  Governor  of  Illinois, 

58,  59. 

Colonization,  112,  116;  a  step  in 
evolution,  268,  377. 

Collins,  John  A.,  291,  312. 

Come-outers,  226,  283. 

Communities,  287,  288,  290,  291. 

Constitutional  Conventions,  Ken 
tucky,  20,  21 ;  Alabama,  37. 

Constitutions  on  slavery,  Kentucky, 
Alabama,  Mississippi,  Georgia, 
38,  39. 

Constitution,  national,  Garrison  de 
nounces,  215;  Birney  supports, 
338. 

Conventions,  347-350,  364. 


440 


INDEX. 


Corduroy  roads,  36. 

Cotton,  culture  of,  41. 

Crothers,  Rev.  Samuel,  1C7. 

Cotton-gin,  228. 

Coxc,  Rev.  Samuel  II.,  142. 

Churches,  Associate  Reformed  Pres 
byterian,  166;  Michigan  Synod, 
234 ;  Methodist,  235  ;  disturb 
ance  of,  325 ;  tribute  to,  by 
James  G.  Birney,  368. 

Dallas,  George  M.,   25 ;   Alexander 

J.,  29. 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  288. 
Danville,  4,  7,  14;  anti-slavery,  ;9; 

bank,  4,  31. 

District  of  Columbia,  332, 
Disunion  in  1827-'28,  68. 
Doak,  Samuel,  74. 
Dudley,  Rev.  John,  258. 

Earle,  Thomas,  350. 
Emancipation,    New    Jersey,    New 

York,  Pennsylvania,  27. 
"Emancipator"  (Tennessee),  77. 
Eccentrics,  257,  293,  323,  324. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  278,  279, 

284,  293. 

Este,  Judge  David  K.,  2G3. 
Everett,  Governor  Edward,  194. 
Elmorc  letter,  336. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  338. 

Freemason,  ceased  to  be  one  after 
1833,  31. 

Folsom,  Abby,  323. 

Foote,  ex  United  States  Senator,  49. 

Forten,  30. 

Foster,  S.  S.,  325,  368. 

Fuller,  John  E.,  letter  about  Garri 
son,  297. 


"Gag"  rules,  195,  332. 

Garland  forgery,  354. 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  126,  157,  182;  on 
national  Constitution,  215;  hides 
from  mob,  254  ;  inconsistency, 
269,  321 ;  denounces  the  nation, 
the  Union,  and  the  Church,  270- 
273,  279;  about  to  abandon  the 
abolition  cause,  289,  293,  296; 
no-government  views,  292-297, 
309,  311  ;  "Liberator,"  298;  in 
fluence  of  flattery  upon,  302 ; 
opinions  of,  by  Stanton,  Torrey, 
St.  Clair,  Le  Bosquet,  Daniel 
Wise,  George  Allen,  and  Amos  A. 
Phelps,  303,  304;  egotism,  310; 
bad  memory,  311,  378;  small 
following,  314  ;  opinions  of,  by 
Lewis,  A.  T.  Rankin,  the  Boston 
and  Bennington  newspapers,  etc., 
315-317  ;  by  Lundy,  317 ;  alleges 
conspiracy  of  colonizationists  to 
kill  him,  318-320 ;  not  the  found 
er,  318-320,  Appendix  C;  Von 
Hoist's  opinion  of,  322  ;  morbid 
vanity,  320,  321  ;  not  a  church- 
member,  321  ;  claims  to  be  an 
infidel,  321 ;  faith  in  quack  medi 
cines  and  spirit  manifestations, 
322 ;  views  and  principles  not 
accepted,  330,  361  ;  slanders 
James  G.  Birney,  377;  and  lead 
ing  abolitionists,  378  ;  treatment 
of  Lundy,  Appendix  B. 

Gates,  Seth  M.,  341. 

"Genius of  Universal  Emancipation," 
Lundy's,  76,  80,  Appen  dix  B. 

Greelcy,  Horace,  327,  328  ;  retracts, 
353-355. 

Green,  Judge  John,  148;  Judge 
Thomas,  186. 


INDEX. 


441 


Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  341. 
Gillespie,  Mrs.,  10. 
Grimke,  the  sisters,  290. 
Goodell,  William,  312,  315,  348. 
Gurley,  Ralph  Randolph,  112. 

Hammond,  Charles,  205,  245,  248. 
Harrison,  William  Henry,  349. 
Historical  errors,  64. 
Hitchcock,  Chief  Justice,  265. 
Holley,  Myron,  348. 
Hopkins,  Arthur  F.,  35,  49,  60. 
Houston,  Samuel,  75. 
Huntsville,  lawyers,  45  ;  Big  Spring, 
45,  53. 

Illinois,  vote  excluding  slavery,  65. 
Insurrections,    Virginia,    72,    102; 
Jamaica,  104. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  5  ;  at  races,  presi 
dential  aspirant,  40 ;  speech  of 
James  G.  Birney  against,  41,  67  ; 
coalition,  67  ;  election,  87  ;  mes 
sage  against  freedom  of  the  mails 
and  press,  191 ;  policy  of,  222. 

Jacksonism,  85. 

Jay,  Judge  William,  176,  177,  275, 
296,  335,  336,  348. 

Johnson,  Oliver,  276,  312. 

Johnson,  Rev.  Samuel,  286. 

Kansas,  351. 

Kendall,  Amos,  188,  189. 

Kentucky,  hard  times  in,  31  ;  eman 
cipation,  99;  Abolition  Society, 
156,  169;  public  opinion,  158; 
free  speech  in,  162. 

Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  66, 
329. 

Lamson,  "  Father,"  324. 


Lane  Seminary  debate,  135. 

Law  studies,  29  ;  practice,  30,  135. 

Law,  proposed  against  the  press, 
192. 

Lawrence,  Matilda,  261. 
!  Leavitt,  Joshua,  345,  Appendix  C. 

Lecturers,  256. 

Legislatures,  339. 

Lewis,  Samuel,  of  Ohio,  315,  377. 

"Liberator,"  109;  a  failure  finan 
cially,  318. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  ?30. 

Louisiana,  Kentucky  resolution 
against,  33. 

Love,  William,  35,  46. 

Lovejoy,  Elisha  P.,  250,  259. 

"Luminary,  Western,"  of  Lexing 
ton,  Ky.,  anti-slavery,  99,  141, 
145. 

Lundy,  Benjamin,  76,  80,  83,  86, 
Appendix  B. 

Madison,  George,  32,  33 ;  James,  70. 

Mahan,  John  B.,  166,  340,  Ap 
pendix  E. 

Marshall,  Humphrey,  2,  8 ;  Anna 
Maria,  8. 

Maryland  laws,  81. 

Massachusetts,  332,  335. 

Missouri  controversy,  64,  65. 

Mobs,  in  South,  before  1828,  72  ;  in 
New  York  city,  142  ;  no  mobs  in 
1835,  in  four  cities,  172;  at 
Charleston,  188;  systematized, 
196;  at  Utica  and  Boston,  197; 
Cincinnati,  204,  240;  political 
and  commercial,  211,  244;  con 
siderations  on,  250  ;  against  Wes 
ley,  252  ;  H.  B.  Stanton  on,  303. 

Morris,  United  States  Senator 
Thomas,  340,  345. 


442 


INDEX. 


New  Jersey,  emancipation  in,  27. 

Nicholas,  George,  of  Kentucky, 
20,  21. 

No-government  doctrines,  307  ;  con 
demned  by  public  opinion,  325. 

Nullification  pamphlet,  Calhoun's, 
70. 

O'Counell,  Daniel,  364. 
Ohio,  immediate  abolitionists,  163- 
170,  Appendix  E. 

Parties,  dumb,  200 ;  description  of, 
223,  350. 

Party  name,  350. 

"  Patriot,"  a  North  Carolina  aboli 
tion  weekly,  78. 

Peers,  Rev.  Dr.,  140. 

Pcnnock,  Abraham  L.,  30. 

Phelps,  Amos  A.,  135,  274,  295, 
304,  314. 

Presbytery,  Union,  East  Tennessee, 
75  ;  Abingdon,  76  ;  Chillicothe, 
388. 

Presbyterians,  100;  Kentucky  syn 
od,  151 ;  anti-slavery  report,  154. 

Press,  freedom  of,  menaced,  192; 
standing  of,  220. 

Petition,  right  of,  194,  334. 

Philadelphia,  trading  with,  4;  life 
at,  29. 

"  Philanthropist,"  230. 

Pillsbury,  Parker,  325,  368. 
^.Phillips,  Wendell,  326,  328,  329. 

Princeton,  life  at,  25. 

Polk,  James  K.,  352. 

Power,  moral,  325. 

Political  action,  71,  96,  116,  119, 
124,  127-130,  148,  156,  171,  174, 
175;  "a  dirty  mire,"  226;  non- 
voters,  266,  300,  305,  333,  342. 


Purcell,  Archbishop,  249,  259. 

Rankin,  Rev.  John,  1C 8,  171,  Ap 
pendix  E. 

Raymond,  Daniel,  of  Maryland,  82, 
83  ;  abolition  candidate,  84. 

Reaction  of  public  opinion,  200. 

Read,  John,  2,  16 ;  Thomas  B.,  2. 

Republican  party,  genesis  of,  188— 
201. 

Rice,  Rev.  David,  of  Kentucky,  16, 
17,  20. 

Ripley,  Rev.  George,  284,  287. 

Roads  in  the  South,  36. 

Rogers,  N.  P.,  378. 

Slade,  William,  340,  341. 

Stanton,  Henry  B.,  136,  1-13,  274, 
301,  302,  345. 

Stanton,  Elizabeth  Cady,  365. 

Slaves  in  Kentucky,  20;  freed  in 
North  Carolina,  80. 

Slavery    in   Kentucky,   movements 

•    against,  20,  21. 

Slave  power,  190,  332. 

Slave-holders,  number  of,  161. 

States,  slave,  demands  of,  190. 

States,  free,  Vermont,  Massachu 
setts,  and  Pennsylvania,  237. 

Secession,  66,  68-71 ;  adopted  as 
Garrisonian  platform,  326. 

Seminole  War,  195. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  351. 

Stewart,  Alvan,  335,  345,  3-18. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  151,  152,  154,  157, 
348,  376,  379. 

Smith,  Dr.  Samuel  Stanhope,  26,  27. 

Scotch-Irish,  1. 

Scott,  General  Winfield,  849. 

Schools,  91. 

Solid  South,  64,  Chapter  XL 


INDEX. 


443 


Southern  opiuions  on  slavery,  78. 
Southampton  insurrection,  72,  102. 
Stone,  William  L.,  140,  Appendixes 

C  and  D, 
Stroud,  George  M.,  on  slavery  laws, 

135,  170. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  362. 
Sumner,  Charles,  331,  351. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  222. 

Tappan,  Lewis,  142,  156,  295,  314, 
318;  Arthur,  136,  365;  .Benja 
min,  340. 

Tennessee,  abolition,  74-77,  115, 
117-119. 

Texas,  insurrections  in,  88 ;  at 
tempted  purchase  of,  by  Jackson, 
89  ;  insurrection  fomented,  195. 

"Tribune,"  New  York,  staff  of,  328. 

Titus,  Alabama  Senator,  37. 

Thome  and  Kimball's  book,  335. 

Thompson,  George,  197,  251. 

Thoreau,  287. 

Tyson,  Elisha,  of  Maryland,  anti- 
slavery  philanthropist,  80. 


Underground     railroad,    in     1826, 
Mahan  and  Ccffin,  167. 

Vagaries,  philosophy  of  Boston,  282. 
Van  Buren,  377. 

Van    Hoist,   historian,    314 ;    esti 
mate  of  Garrison,  322,  328,  331. 
Vote  of  Liberty  party,  333. 

Webster,  Daniel,  90. 

Weld,  Theodore  D.,  105,  110,  136, 

143,  149,  151,  334,  341,  379,  380. 
Whittier,  John  G.,  275,  316,  362. 
Whig,   defection,   347 ;    campaign, 

350,  351. 

Wing,  the  small  extreme,  314. 
Wilmot,    David,    of    Pennsylvania, 

351. 

Wilson,  Henry,  351. 
Writings  of  James  G.  Birney,  125, 

141,  206,  207,  Appendix  F. 
Wright,  Henry  C.,  269,  276,  293, 

299,  303 ;  extravagant  language, 

324. 
Wright,  Elizur,  275,  348. 


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